


A Fair Exchange

by TheSleepingOne (SleepingNebula)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:47:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 38,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingNebula/pseuds/TheSleepingOne
Summary: Both Mandalore and the Republic are devastated by a century of war with one another.  When the Mand'alor, Jango Fett, comes forwards with a peace treaty, both sides agree to do anything to make it work despite the odds stacked against them.  Even if that means they each must exchange something dear to them as a promise they will not break the truce.As little as a year ago, Cody and Ahsoka wouldn't have been able to comprehend finding themselves in each other's world, let alone making friends with their greatest enemy or trying to integrate themselves into an alien culture.  Now their very lives depend on it.[Or; Mandalorians and Jedi could never reconcile, could they?]
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 189
Kudos: 536





	1. Chapter 1

Cody stands on the landing pad waiting for the delegation to arrive. As much as he hates to admit it, even in the safety of his head, he’s as nervous as a karking _shiny_. If Wolffe were here, he’d be torn mercilessly apart for it. His cousins have always been able to read him far better than anyone else, even when he’s trying not to be read. Cody blames it on their shared childhood. 

But Wolffe isn’t here, and it’s unlikely Cody is going to see him for a long time, not with where either of them are going. That there’s a high chance he won’t see him again at _all_ , is a sudden and sobering thought. As much as he jokes about how much of a pain in his shebs his vod are, he’s going to miss the bastards. 

Even Wolffe.

Rex is here though, at Cody’s side, and he draws strength from his brother’s solid presence. It’s obvious that the last few years have forced him to grow up far faster than he ever should have, and while Cody is proud of the man his brother has become, he’s sad about the circumstances that have forced it about. He knows their mother would be too. And he knows that Rex will continue to grow in Cody’s absence, just as Boba will.

He purposely doesn’t think about it, because if he _does_ -

Their father stands on Cody’s other side, the same silent menacing presence he always presents. Today in particular, a black storm cloud seems to manifest around him. Cody knows why, of course, but he thinks it’s unfair that he is not allowed to express the same animosity when it is him that is about to suffer. They share the same enemy after all, and it’s Cody that has to live alongside them, even if it’s the Mand’alor that has to make the peace with them. Were it down to him, he’d have found another way to secure the treaty.

But it isn’t down to him. All he can do is now his duty.

They’ve spent hours going over the semantics of it all in his father’s office, reviewing tactics and strategies and the approaches he needs to take, in order to secure peace. Cody is sure he can’t take another suggestion, even in good faith. He wishes it would begin, just so the anticipation can end. There’s something to be said about the battle starting so the planning can finally stop. When there’s nothing left but _instinct_ , and no time for contemplating what could go wrong.

And there’s _so many_ things that could go wrong with this plan.

But Cody is nothing if not loyal – to his people, to his Mand’alor – and nothing will keep him from his duty.

That doesn’t mean he can’t bitch about it, though.

“Hey,” Rex says over a private channel, “at least you won’t have to put up with field rations anymore. It’s just state banquets and haute cuisine on the horizon for you.”

Cody grimaces. Frankly, he can think of nothing worse. With fancy dinners come fancy clothing and the people wearing them. He’d take a shell scrape and his men with shitty rations over a seven-course affair any day. “Thanks for the reminder, vod.”

“Don’t let the food lull you into complacency,” Bly helpfully offers. “That’s how they get you.”

Cody’s cousin leans around Rex’s shoulder to give him a pointed look. If he weren’t so nervous, Cody might snort.

Rex, who isn’t, does it for him. “Yeah, it’ll be the food that gets him and not our age-old enemy who he will be _sleeping_ _with_.”

“I’m not going to be sleeping with them,” he grits. He doubts he’ll be able to sleep at all so close to people who want him dead and he wants dead in turn.

He can feel Rex’s suggestive look from behind the visor of his bucket and maturely decides to ignore it.

“All I’m saying,” Bly says carefully, “is that they’re going to try to get your guard down. Be careful.”

This time Cody does snort. “Thanks, I hadn’t thought of that.”

Maybe it would be better if Wolffe _were_ here to read him. Being dead would be one hell of an excuse to get out of what he’s about to do. But his cousin is half-way across the galaxy, overseeing a relief effort as a fully commissioned commander, sworn to the Mand’alor. He’s being useful, acting as a buffer for their people’s protection should Cody fail in his task. Cody has never been jealous of Wolffe until now. He has royal blood by his relation to the Mand’alor – his uncle – and it’s enough to afford him privilege without weighing him down with the consequences of it.

It’s not as if he’s the kriffing _heir_.

He’s not the one who has to venture into the gundark’s nest as a glorified hostage to make peace with their enemies.

On the horizon a ship drops into view and Cody feels his shoulders stiffen instinctively. _This is it_. Like his father had said; one day, he will stand at Jango’s pyre and offer himself in servitude to the people of Mandalore. He has to prove himself worthy before that day comes, and this is his chance.

“Look at it this way,” Rex says, watch the ship with feigned apathy, “you get to go to the Core worlds and they might not even shoot you.”

No Mandalorian has ventured legally into the Core worlds in a hundred years. Not a real one, anyway. Kryze had been educated on Coruscant itself, but she had been no Mandalorian. Her politics had made that evident enough when she condemned everything from their culture to the Fett name, renouncing the very ideals that make a _Mandalorian_ in the same breath.

“Look at it this way,” Cody replies, “when they do shoot me, you have to be the heir.”

That shuts him up.

“Maybe I’ll make Boba my heir,” their father says, breaking his silence.

Even now, Cody struggles to tell the difference between his father’s deadpan humour and complete seriousness. He’s _mostly_ sure that Jango wouldn’t renounce Rex in his line of succession, but then the Mand’alore has been known to make more _drastic_ decisions.

Like this peace treaty.

Rex might not answer, but Cody can almost hear the muttering under his breath. _“That’s fine by me.”_

“Just don’t renounce me while I’m stuck in the _Jetii_ fortress,” Cody says. He’d rather not have his value as a hostage revoked when it’s going to be the only thing keeping him alive. He’s under no illusion that the Jetii are going to do anything more than tolerate his presence. For peacekeepers they’re awfully acclimatised to violence.

“I will do everything I can to keep you safe,” his father promises with such sincerity that Cody finds himself unable to do anything but swallow back the feeling clawing its way up his throat.

He jerks his head in thanks and finds himself meeting his father at eye level. It takes him a moment to realise he’s the taller one, even if there’s barely an inch in it, and he tries desperately to think when that happened.

He wasn’t commanding the Outer Sieges for that long.

“ _Vor entye_ ,” Cody replies quietly. _Thank you_.

They stand and watch the ship descend in silence after that. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to say, and even Rex doesn’t have a taunt to distract them with. There isn’t any restless shuffling – they’re all far too disciplined for that. Even Anchor, the newest addition to the King’s Guard, presents nothing but a professionally still front. 

Cody thinks he might crawl out of his own skin if he doesn’t move soon. He tightens his jaw instead and watches as the Jetii transport sets itself down on the landing pad with a hiss of hydraulics. The cooling systems start their cycling, and it occurs to him this is the first ship with the Jetii sigil stamped on the side that he hasn’t attempted to shoot down on sight.

Then the ramp of the ship extends downwards, and the delegates descend.


	2. Chapter 2

Many of his fellow Councillors have their doubts about this treaty, and he has a few of his own, but none of them have had to deal with Anakin to quite the same extent as he has. It’s safe to say his former padawan is _not_ happy about this arrangement, and while Obi-Wan isn’t either, neither has he tried quite so hard to sabotage it. This is the first real attempt they’ve had at peace in over a hundred years. The Jedi cannot be the ones to throw that away.

Ahsoka understands that, even if her master can’t. She volunteered herself to the Council before they could ask her _because_ she knows what’s at stake, and they had agreed that this would be her trial for knighthood. If she can keep her faith and her head while withstanding one of the greatest challenges ever faced by not just to the Order, but the Republic itself, then she will have more than earned it.

It’s not that Obi-Wan doesn’t think Ahsoka is ready for knighthood – she’s more than ready, and she’s proved that time and again – but that he thinks this is an assignment for someone with more experience. Someone of master rank, not a padawan still in her teens. There’s so much residing on the exchange going smoothly, and that kind of pressure on a padawan operating alone is dangerous. He knows that all too personally. 

Anakin’s concern there is valid, even if he fails to see the larger picture.

But the Mand’alor has been explicitly clear. It has to be a fair exchange; one promise of a secure future for another. The Mand’alor has offered up his heir in as sincere an offer of peace as he can manage, and the same sincerity is expected back in turn. The Jedi don’t have kings or princes or heirs, but they do have lineages and Ahsoka is the Grandmaster’s direct descendant in that respect. She is as close a match to the prince as the Jedi can offer, and Obi-Wan just hopes that the Mand’alor understands that. The future of the Order is as much on her shoulders – as it is on any padawan’s, though Mandalorians won’t understand that sentiment – as Mandalore’s is on Marshal Commander Fett’s.

That, at least, is the reasoning behind the peace treaty between Mandalore the Great and the Galactic Republic being solidified by the exchange of Padawan Ahsoka Tano and Marshal Commander Kote Fett. It’s supposed to be an act of mutual respect, but any fool can see that hostage would be just as applicable, if more taboo. It’s absurd that Obi-Wan hopes the exchange of hostages _works_.

Next to him, Ahsoka squares her shoulders as the ship shudders to a stop. Around them the accompanying knights and half of the Council collect themselves, drawing in their shields that much tighter as they prepare to meet with their greatest enemy. Obi-Wan’s saber hangs from his hip, just as much for his defence as it is a show of strength. Experience has taught him that both are likely needed when Mandalorians are involved.

“How are you feeling?” he asks her quietly.

It had been an almost unanimous decision on the Council’s part to have Anakin remain at the Temple. Obi-Wan loves his padawan dearly, but even he could see that Anakin’s hot-headed temperament would be ill suited to delicate negotiations, particularly when his own padawan is at stake. In his place, Obi-Wan puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Fine, Master,” she replies just as quietly, turning to fix him with one of her determined stares. “I can do this.”

Around them the other masters pretend not to hear, giving them the illusion of privacy.

“I know you can.” She _can_ , of that he is certain. He wouldn’t let her within five sectors of Mandalore if he didn’t believe she could. Despite what Anakin might think, he will never forgive himself if anything happens to her. “Of that I have no doubt.”

The pilot calls out, announcing that they’ve landed successfully and he’s going to open the doors. 

“This is only temporary,” he reminds her, “until the treaty is solidified.”

“I know,” she says, though there’s a lack of conviction behind her words.

It’s true they don’t know how long this situation will last. The delicate nature of the treaty has them all on edge, even without considering its duration. That won’t have escaped Ahsoka’s notice, and while he’d dearly like to be able to offer her more comfort, he also knows that empty platitudes will help no-one. They must all do their duty, and deal with the consequences.

That’s all any of them can do.

The door to the ship opens and the ramp descends, revealing the Mandalorian greeting party occupying the far end of the landing platform and the capital city of Keldabe spread out far below. The platform connects onto one of the upper levels of the palace, raising them above the city that stretches as far as the Kelita river will allow.

Four Mandalorians stand in front of the red-clad Guard fanned out around the landing pad. Their armour is painted in different colours – blue, gold and orange respectively – denoting their battalions, all of which Obi-Wan has come across during the war. The Mand’alor alone has unpainted silver armour, and he is the first to step forwards as Obi-Wan’s hand falls from Ahsoka’s shoulder and the Jedi make their way down the ramp.

The first thing he can sense is the thick tension in the air, and the flare of anger from the Mandalorians at the sight of Jedi. None of them move to draw their blasters, but Obi-Wan can feel their desire to, and he knows Ahsoka can too. It’s the first time he really considers how much of a bad idea this could be. 

Kidnapping his grandpadawan on the verge of peace talks wouldn’t be the most ill-advised thing he’s ever done.

The Grandmaster steps forwards to greet Fett, and they meet halfway. Long seconds pass as the two appraise each other, and everyone around them has no choice but to await their verdict. Ahsoka practically vibrates with all the tension she’s holding in her shoulders, and Obi-Wan rues that he can’t offer her any more comfort than to curl around her what safety he can amass in the Force. Her own presence reaches out to his in tentative thanks, and they stay that way until Master Yoda decides the moment has gone on long enough.

He bows to the Mand’alor. Jango Fett tilts his head in assessment before he reaches up to remove his helmet. The face underneath is something they’re all familiar with, be it from Council reports or from the holobroadcasts. But it’s not something they’ve ever seen in person before. Obi-Wan has met him twice on the battlefield, though never without his helmet. For a Mandalorian to take off their armour is a sign they don’t feel threatened and Obi-Wan can’t decide if for him to do so now is an act of peace or a powerplay.

The Mand’alor gestures behind himself, and the Commander of the 212th steps forwards to join his father, removing his own helmet as he does so. Commander Fett looks like a carbon copy of his father, if his father were twenty years younger. From their height to the cut of their hair, they’re virtually identical, and if it weren’t for the age lines on the Mand’alor’s face and the wicked scar framing his son’s, Obi-Wan isn’t sure he could tell them apart. Their reputations are certainly similar enough.

“I present my son and heir for this exchange,” the Mand’alor says, eyeing the Grandmaster expectantly.

Master Yoda turns back to them. Obi-Wan squeezes Ahsoka’s shoulder and encourages her forwards when she seems reluctant to move. “You’re up now, Padawan.”

She shakes herself and steps past him with all the confidence she can muster, every eye on her – Mandalorian and Jedi alike – as she moves to stand by the side of her four-times great grandmaster.

“The Jedi Order presents Padawan Ahsoka Tano for this exchange.”

The Mand’alor eyes her for a long moment, and it’s painfully obvious that Ahsoka’s defiant glare is the alternative to her shrinking under the scrutiny. She looks awfully small next to the two Mandalorians in their full armour and that she’s only seventeen is brutally apparent. But she stands her ground, her shoulders rigid in her refusal to back down. 

_Yes_ , Obi-wan thinks, _she will be fine_.

“Very well,” the Mand’alor replies.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! Xx

From the moment the Jedi introduce their hostage Rex knows that there’s not a chance in Manda they’re going to be able to pull this off, no matter how determined his father is for the peace to hold. She’s may be a karking child by Republic standards, wearing no armour at all and about to walk into a world of heavily armed Mandalorians, but the Jetii must be foolish to believe that will save her. By all Mandalorian standards, she’s of age and accountable to her actions. And her actions proceed her name. Rex finds himself hating the Jetii all the more in that moment, because of everyone they could send, they sent _her_.

Skywalker’s padawan he knows by reputation. Few _don’t_.

She’s killed many of his brethren both directly on the battlefield and indirectly with webs of sabotage and diplomacy. That she lingers by Kenobi’s side as they’re ushered into the palace and up to the feasting hall makes it worse. _His_ reputation on Mandalore far proceeds him too, and it’s vastly worse than Tano’s. The Negotiator; a warrior as skilled with his tongue as he is with his blade. The one who raised Skywalker, and the one responsible for Geonosis, for the battle that took his mother.

Rex’s only consolation is that they’re giving the Jetii _Cody_ in return. In that respect, at least, they’re giving as good as they’re getting. If not _more_. For all Cody presents a reliably stoic front to the rest of the galaxy, Rex knows exactly how much of a bastard he can be when he wants to. The methodical commander who never disobeys an order can just as easily be replaced with Cody who’s own interpretation of regs is more malleable. The Jetii aren’t going to know what’s hit them until it’s too late and once the treaty fails, they’ll see exactly what a Mandalorian is capable of. Because Rex knows his brother, and he knows Cody would stop at nothing to make his way home. It is, after all, his duty.

Cody stays at their father’s side, his helmet under his arm, as they walk with the Grandmaster and Head of the Order, leading the way. Rex lingers further behind with Bly, behind the rest of the Jedi. Keeping them all in his sights.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” his cousin says.

“That makes two of us.” Rex has always been taught to listen to his gut, and it has yet to lead him astray. That it’s rolling with unease now is nothing but an indicator of a bleak future. “Still, a brief peace will give us more time to recover than none at all.”

That’s the argument his father had finally won around his more sceptical advisors with. The Mandalorian people are exhausted by war and constant turmoil, and any relief at all will be welcome. That it comes at Cody’s detriment-

Rex believes he will see his brother again after this. He _must_.

The seating arrangement places him next to Tano, and though he knows it’s a necessary formality and a part of his duty as a prince of Mandalore, it doesn’t mean he _likes_ it. Opposite him is Cody, who has been placed next to Kenobi. Cody lets nothing of how he feels about that slip past his neutrally blank face, though he does avoid making eye contact with anyone but Rex. On either side of their father is the Grandmaster and Head of the Order, and Rex doesn’t know who he pities more. Bly has been seated next to a twi’lek with deep blue skin, who he shoots mistrusting glances at as he takes off his helmet and places it beneath his chair.

The meal begins in stilted silences, punctuated only by the diplomatic talk from his father’s end of the table. The first course is a spicy broth that he knows for a fact is one of Cody’s favourites. He also knows that his brother hates the idea that anyone is treating him differently just because he’s leaving, even the cooks. Rex watches as Cody pushes at the liquid with his spoon but makes little attempt to eat it. Like Cody had said earlier, it’s the people he prefers to eat with, not the food he’s eating. Rex finds himself in agreement as he watches Tano wince at her first taste.

Next to him the padawan eats in silence, keeping to herself, and Rex is content to let her. He has no desire to engage her in conversation, or have anything to do with her at all. He’s signed too many letters to next of kin to want to have anything to do with her. His brother treats Kenobi similarly, and they both end up making discreet hand signals to each other in the place of words. Eventually Kenobi must notice because he strikes up a pointed conversation with the padawan, and the rest of the table follow suit, keeping conversation with their own. By the time the second course is served – grilled meats, with many different sauces, special Keldabe salt-bread, and stewed vegetables – the atmosphere hasn’t dissipated, but it’s less oppressive.

“You’ve packed then?” Bly asks Cody from across the table.

Cody nods.

“Tion'jor go'naasir ca'nara?” Vizla, one of his father’s advisors, mutters loudly. He’s sat on Rex’s right, barely touching his food either.

_Why waste time?_

Rex stiffens, and looks to Cody, unsure how to react. It’s not as if the Jedi will understand the slight against them, but neither is it acceptable for one of the Mand’alor’s advisors to openly question his authority in such a public setting. Especially in front of his sons and honoured guests. That kind of dissidence is dangerous, now especially.

Cody fixes Vizla with one of the hard stares he’s learnt from their father. Rex has not managed to master them yet, but that’s as much down to the experience behind them as it Cody’s ability to hide any and all of his emotions in a way Rex has never been able to. He thinks he may have missed the genetics on that one.

“Naak cuyir nayc go'naasir,” Cody replies coldly.

_Peace is no waste._

It takes Rex a moment to realise the entire table has gone deathly quiet, and that all eyes are on them, the Jetii’s just as much as his buir’s. Vizla seems to realise it too, and when he speaks, he directs his words to the Mand’alor alone.

“Shi aruetiise gotal'ur naak ti ibic aru'e.”

_Only traitors make peace with this enemy._

If Vizla wants to walk the path of war with the Mand’alor, then he’s going the right way about it. Rex holds his breath with the rest of them, his hand slipping to one of his DC-17s discretely beneath the table. He sees Bly do the same, and the Guard standing on the edge of the room are all alert, looking towards their Mand’alor for orders.

“Gar Ru'kel Jor'chaajir gar mand’alor a aruetii?” his father asks calmly, but there’s a dangerous glint in his eye.

_You would call your mand’alor a traitor?_

“Ni Ru'kel,” Viszla spits. “Par kaysh cuyir di'kut.”

_I would, for he is a fool._

“Commander,” their father says calmly, in Basic for the benefit of their guests, “please see the Lord Vizsla to his room, it seems a trying day is catching up with him.”

Fox steps out of the shadows of one of the eaves, waving at Hound and Anchor to help him escort Vizsla from his seat. Vizsla stands, his chair scraping against the polished stone, and throws down his napkin to point at the Mand’alor with heated aggression.

“The people will not forget their Mand’alor breaking bread with _Jetiise_ ,” he seethes.

There’s no hiding his meaning from the Jetii when he speaks so plainly, and Rex winces as Fox grabs him by the arms and escorts him out of the room. He finds himself glad Boba isn’t here.

“My apologize,” the Mand’alor says. “I promise he doesn’t not speak for the many.”

The Jedi are silent, and Rex doesn’t know much about the mystic forces they worship, but he does know it’s supposed to allow them to read emotions. What they must be reading at this moment doesn’t bode well for any future peace. As he looks around, Rex sees a great many things and none of them inspire him with confidence. His father’s rage is simmering beneath his calmer façade, and bizarrely his expression is mirrored on the face of the Head of the Order. Tano’s montreals and lekku have blanched a little, and she picks at the food in front of her. Cody’s attention is still focused on Fox’s retreating footsteps with a clear desire to follow them. Bly, for some reason, is staring even more suspiciously at the twi’lek Jedi, who shares a look with the kel dor seated next to Vizsla’s vacated seat. Kenobi’s mouth is drawn into a thin line, and it’s him that is the first to speak. 

“I think,” he says quietly, “that it would not be unreasonable to ask about the accommodations you’ll be making for Padawan Tano’s safety.”

“Of course,” his father says cordially. “I will be assigning my son to watch over her and act as her personal guard when she is not in my direct care.”

Rex turns to look sharply at his father. Cody will be off on Coruscant, far away, and he can hardly be talking about Boba. He must mean _Rex_. Cody looks at him with poorly hidden amusement and if it weren’t unfitting of the occasion, he’d lean across the table to throttle the _di’kut_.

“Of course,” is all he can say.


	4. Chapter 4

The masters and knights are led away to the guest quarters in what the servant refers to as the East Wing. When she tries to go with them, the Mand’alor himself points out she’ll be in more permanent quarters. For her own safety they’ll be within the Royal Wing itself, where the Guard are more concentrated and the security is tighter. That the _Mandalorians_ think she needs the extra security only deepens the dread she’s already feeling and she watches her fellow Jedi disappear with desperate longing. Master Obi-Wan spares her a look backwards and a soft _goodnight_ , and then he’s gone too, leaving Ahsoka alone with _them_.

They don’t say anything, and so she doesn’t either, and it takes a few long moments before the Mand’alor dismisses the rest of the table and tells his son – the captain she’s been seated next to all evening – to show her to her new rooms. The plural catches her off guard, though it shouldn’t. Walking through the palace has already show her its size, and while it isn’t nearly as big as the Temple, there’s aren’t nearly as many people living in it either. They can afford the extra space.

Captain Fett leads her through the halls in stony silence, his hands never far from his blasters. As hard as she tries, she loses track of where they are, and she wonders if that’s intentional on the Captain’s behalf. But he ignores her, and so she ignore him, choosing instead to look at the tapestries and gilded stills lining the walls. They depict kings and battles throughout the ages, and the sound of her boots on the marble is so small in comparison.

Many of them depict Jedi.

“Accurate?” the Captain asks, when her gaze lingers a second too long on a tapestry of fine woven thread many times taller than she is.

“I couldn’t possibly say,” she replies quietly, refusing to rise to his bait.

He snorts, but there’s no humour in it.

The Royal Wing lives up to its name. The décor and artwork is finer here, the attention to detail by the staff more evident. Vases full of strange lilies line the walls along with more tapestries, filling the air with a sweet perfume that is very different from the must of sweat she’s come to associate with Mandalorians. The artwork here is focused on the kings and queens themselves, and she finds herself stopping involuntarily at a large oil painting that must be worth more than anything she or her master own combined, and that includes their sabers.

The Mand’alor’s wife stares back down at her. Instead of the unforgiving distain Ahsoka has come to expect from the holobroadcasts, there’s something more maternal and comforting that the painting has managed to embody, but that’s not what makes her pause. When beings spend time and effort making something, their energy is imbued within it and it lingers. She can _feel_ the love in each brush stroke, and it takes conscious effort to pull back her hand when she realises she’s reached out to touch it.

“This way,” the Captain says coldly, when he sees she’s stopped following him. His scowl only deepens when he realises _why_.

Ahsoka isn’t foolish enough to linger, and hurries back to his side. 

They stop at a door at the end of the corridor, a member of the Guard on either side.

“This is your room,” he says, not really looking at her. “If you need anything ask one of the Guard.”

Ahsoka nods her thanks and slips inside, unable to hide just how badly she wants to be away from them. After dinner, her estimation of her time here has plummeted. It’s painfully clear that she’s as wanted here as the prince will be in the Temple. Only, she’s sure she’s in more mortal danger. The Republic won’t risk the prince’s life, even over a peace treaty. If all goes sour, they’re sure to use his full value as a hostage and he’ll find his eventual way back to Mandalore. She’s not so sure the Mandalorians won’t slit her throat in her sleep, even before the peace treaty is over.

The room is huge, with a large sunken pit in the centre lined with plush couches and a low table. Thick rugs cover the floor and an open fire burns on one side of the room. The entire far wall is made of transparisteel and leads out onto a large balcony overlooking the whole of Keldabe below. It takes her a moment to realise that despite all of the space, there isn’t a bed, and she’s about to resign herself to one of the couches and consider it a cultural oversight, when she realises that the doors aren’t closets but entirely different _rooms_.

There’s a large bathroom, with a water shower and far too many controls, a kitchen bigger than the communal one she and Anakin had shared, a padded room she can only assume is meant for training, an empty room of shelves and rails for her clothes (her three sets of tunics are going to look pathetic on a single shelf) and lastly a bedroom with a huge four-poster bed that is almost as large as the first room and also has its own fire. Her things have been left at the base of it, and for lack of anything to do besides stand and gawk at the size of everything, she roots through the first crate for her sleeping tunics and lays them out on the bed.

It takes her barely an hour to search the entire apartment – and it _is_ an apartment, not rooms – for bugs. Even with the Force she finds nothing, and it only makes her more suspicious as she dresses for bed and slips beneath the covers, her sabers beneath her pillow. It takes less than half an hour for her to realize there isn’t a Sith’s chance she’s going to fall asleep. 

She knows she should call Anakin, and even pulls her comm out to do so, but finds she can’t make herself connect the call. She doesn’t need his raging anger right now, or his self-righteous fury. She wants something calmer to soothe her nerves, someone who won’t try and convince her to go back to the Temple – to _give up_ – before she’s even begun her mission.

She dials a different number instead, and he picks up and agrees to meet her without question.

Ahsoka slips back out of bed and retrieve her grey robe, the one with the hood, pulling it tightly around her sleeping tunics as she slips her sabers into her pocket. When she opens the door, the Guard turn to her with unimpressed wrath, and she nearly cows under the hatred they leak heavily into the Force. But she’s a Jedi and the padawan of _Anakin Skywalker_. She’s experienced far more terrifying things in her apprenticeship than guards who are there to keep her safe.

“I have a meeting to attend. You are welcome to accompany me if you wish.” Even to her own ears her voices sounds stilted, like a poor imitation of Master Obi-Wan’s, but it doesn’t waver and it contains far more conviction that she feels.

She steps past them, and starts walking. After a moment, the sound of armoured boots begins to follow her and she lets out a sigh of relief that their hatred hasn’t shifted into the anger-danger-fury that means they’re going to stun her into submission. These Mandalorians don’t talk to her either, and she doesn’t have the confidence to ask for their names. They’ll likely be gone when morning comes anyway, replaced by the next shift. As long as she remembers their _signatures_ when she keeps track of the guard rounds, it doesn’t matter.

Master Plo stands under the gruesome tapestry Captain Fett had asked her if she thought was accurate. She comes to a stop by his side, sending a glance backwards at the guards. They seem to have instinctively melted into the shadows of the hall, something the dark red of their armour is surprisingly good for. She’s in no doubt they’ll be able to hear every word said, but at least they’re _subtle_ about it.

“Master,” she greets quietly.

Master Plo inclines his head, not taking his eyes off the tapestry. “Padawan.”

They stand in silence for a moment, taking it in. It’s of Galidraan, and for all it is hideous in its depiction, there’s no doubt it is a work of fine craftsmanship. Ahsoka is surprised by that. All she knows of the Mandalorians is their brutality and prowess in battle. That’s all she’s experienced. That their people are not only capable of art, but also give up such painstaking time towards it, counters everything she thought she knew of them.

“It’s late, little ‘Soka,” Master Plo says after a long moment, glancing down at her. “What has you up at such an hour?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she confesses, and gestures around her. “I know I can do this, but I don’t know if I can…” she trails off, unsure what she’s incapable of, only aware that it’s something _important_.

“To be worried is to be expected,” he assures her, “and your concern does you credit. If you were not wary of the task laid before you, then I would question if you knew what has truly been asked of you.”

“I know, Master. I’m just…”

She looks up at the tapestry and the likeness of Master Dooku cutting – _slaughtering_ – Mandalorians with the shadowy figures at his back, wielding glowing sabers. Blood runs in rivers around the Mandalorians making a last stand, Jango Fett central among them.

“…afraid,” she confesses in a whisper. The hatred of everything she stands for seeps from the very stone of the winding pillars and twisting archways, gnawing at her shields with persistence. It’s increasingly apparent just how alone she is going to be here. And it makes her _fear_. 

“Can I tell you a secret, little one?”

She nods.

“We’re all afraid.”

She frows, her brows drawn tightly. That someone as calm and controlled as Master Plo could ever be afraid is _absurd_. He must know of the dangers of fear, surely? “But fear leads to hate and hate leads to Darkness,” she says hesitantly. To correct a _master_ feels wrong.

Master Plo _laughs_. It’s not a laugh that ridicules her or makes her feels lesser, but almost seems self depreciating on his own behalf. “No, little one, if that were true, we’d all have Fallen. _Acting_ in fear leads to Darkness. But allowing ourselves to feel that fear and not letting it affect our actions, doing the right thing regardless? That is the action of a true Jedi. It is impossible to not feel fear, it is inherent to being sentient. You need to know what to do with that fear, to be able to release it into the Force, or it will consume you. Be mindful of your emotions, but do not let them control you.”

That sounds like something Obi-Wan would say, and it brings her a little amount of comfort, even if she’s not entirely sure she _understands_.

He notices her confusion. “Do not fear being afraid, Ahsoka. Trust your instincts but don’t allow them to rule you.”

“How do I know the difference?”

“That,” he sights, “isn’t something that can be taught. It must be _learnt_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: while there will eventually be Codywan, this is just to say there won’t be any Rexsoka in this fic. I'm here for Rex and Ahsoka’s chaotic friendship, and oblivious Codywan. That is all I'm afraid. Xx


	5. Chapter 5

Jango Fett is many things, and he’s beginning to think a fool may be one of them. He’s allowed this man, this traitor, into his home. Given him food from his table, even as the _aruetii_ plots the fall of peace – and quite possible Mandalore with it – behind his back. Vizsla is willing to plunge Mandalore back into another brutal war it cannot afford for power, prestige and the illusion of righteousness. It wouldn’t be difficult to accuse Jango of being a selfish man, but it’s with absolute certainty that he can say he would never do that. Everything he’s done has been to claw Mandalore back from the maw of war.

It’s a testament to how far Jango has come since Galidraan – since _Geonosis_ – that Vizsla isn’t already dead. It’s a testament to the value he places on his son’s opinion of him that Vizsla isn’t a bloody mess on the floor of the cell.

Next to him, Cody frowns at the monitor. Jango knows that look; he’s been guilty of it on many occasions. His _riduur_ used to say it promised trouble. Once, he would have laughed at the idea that trouble could be inherited, but three sons and four nephews later, and he has no other explanation for the way the Fett name attracts one disaster after another. Vizsla is only their latest.

“We can’t hold him,” Cody says quietly.

Cody is right, of course. Jango watches Vizsla as he sits on the edge of the bed, radiating smugness even through the security feed. As much a danger as he represents, he hasn’t actually attacked anyone or made a _direct_ attempt against Jango’s life. And threats are hardly illegal. If they were, every mando’ade in existence would be imprisoned. They have no grounds to hold him beyond the morning when the jetiise leave, and he stops endangering their honoured guests. Not if Jango doesn’t want to bring the wrath of the older clans down on his neck for false imprisonment of a clan head. With the peace as tenuous as it is, that isn’t something they can afford.

“No, we can’t.”

Cody looks to him. “Will you keep him on your council?”

Jango sighs and rubs at his temple, a tell he’d allow in no other company. It’s a valid question, and one he’s going to have to give much consideration. If he keeps Vizsla on his council, then he won’t be able to return to his clan stronghold without intentionally slighting the Mand’alor and Jango is then well within his right to deal with him as he sees fit. But if Jango dismisses Vizsla from his council, he has every right to disappear with his nefarious intentions and do as he pleases in the shadows, away from Jango’s watchful eye. The sensible thing to do is to keep his enemy close, but Jango doesn’t want the bastard anywhere near him or his family, and he can’t decide if he should listen to his gut or his head.

His _riduur_ would have known. She’d always had the ability to see things from the best angles.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Cody nods, and looks towards the door at the sound of approaching footsteps. Rex nods at Fox’s sentry by the door as he enters.

“The _Jetii_ in her room?”

“ _Elek, Buir_.”

Good, he thinks. Let’s just hope she stays there. It wouldn’t do for her to run into anyone wishing her harm, not the night before the treaty is signed. Too much has already been yielded for it to fall through now, and this evening has revealed there are more vipers than they thought amongst them.

“How is Vizsla?” Rex asks.

Jango waves a hand at the monitor distractedly.

“That good?” his second son says wearily. 

“It doesn’t help that we have no way of knowing how many share his sentiment.” Cody sighs. 

Cody is right. Vizsla may not surprise anyone with his true loyalties – he’s always challenged Jango’s rule, but never so _explicitly_ as tonight – but there will be those who are sympathetic to him that do not have the courage to show their face. Jango may detest the man, but at least Tor Vizsla has the spine to stand for his own cause in public. That many self-proclaimed Mando’ade slink in the shadows with their beliefs brings him shame.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Rex says grimly.

Cody grimaces. “Don’t curse us.”

It might be a little late for that already.

“Whatever happens here, you know what you need to do in the Core.” They’ve already discussed the task ahead of Cody at great length, and the reminder is unneeded. His son knows that the treaty, in all of its fragility, rests upon his success at making allies within the Jetii fortress and the Senate while he has the chance. Politics have to win out over feelings for the sake of Mandalore and her people. Cody knows that, and what’s more he’s capable of achieving it. Jango believes that. He _has_ to. 

Otherwise, he has to acknowledge he might be sending his son to his death.

“I know,” Cody agrees easily, refusing to say that _knowing_ and _doing_ are entirely different entities. “And I will do what it takes.”

Jango is enough of a man to admit that the conviction in Cody’s voice makes the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end. “I know,” he echoes.

Rex looks up from his comm and curses. “The Jetii has left her room.”


	6. Chapter 6

Obi-Wan stands at the edge of the throne room and watches as Master Windu countersigns for Master Yoda under the Mand’alor’s watchful eye. Ahsoka is at his side, seeming calmer than she had the day before. He wonders if that’s anything to do with the rumours he’s heard she had to be escorted back to her new rooms in the middle of the night by an irate prince.

Let it not be said that she isn’t Anakin’s padawan.

“Let the _ijaat ad_ and their _aran’uir_ step forwards,” the treaty’s mediator says. She’s an austere woman with iron grey hair in coiled loops at the base of her neck and sparce beskar’gam of deep blue.

“Ijaat- aran’uir?” Ahsoka asks him. 

“ _Honoured_ _children_ ,” he tells her. “The other I think means _guardian_ , but it doesn’t translate so well.”

“Do I want to know what it really means?” She steps forwards with him, out past the twisting pillar and towards the foot of the throne. It’s an uncomfortable looking thing, cut from smooth white marble and painted with a golden mythosaur that curls around the back to lie it’s head on one of the armrests. 

Obi-Wan draws his hands inside the sleeves of his robe as he matches her pace. “The literal translation is _guard-parent_.” As with all Mando’a, the harsh threat in the words isn’t necessarily intentional. Though, he supposes there’s no way to tell it _isn’t_. 

Ahsoka sniffs, but then they’re too close and she says nothing more. They both bow to the masters of the Order and the Mand’alor, who looks at them with the same cool distain from the previous night.

It’s better than a murderous rage.

The Marshal Commander lingers at his father’s side, helmet hooked on to the belt at his hip. Obi-Wan looks at him while the formalities continue, assessing him as the Mand’alor vows to protect Ahsoka with his life and honour. For all that the Commander is already grown and a leader in his own right, he’s to be Obi-Wan’s new charge and he isn’t sure how the Mandalorian is going to react to that. Obi-Wan’s main job will be to keep him safe from senators and would-be assassins, and even perhaps Jedi who forget themselves, over any kind of apprenticeship, but he _worries_. 

By all accounts – his own included – the Commander has profiled himself as level headed and rational, both in and out of the field. Obi-Wan simply doesn’t want to see if that rationality extends to accepting his place within the Order as a student, when many would see that as an insult. But it’s hardly as if they can send him out on missions or ask him to assist Madam Nu in the Archives. Teaching him Jedi philosophy and skills is an honour and it’s befitting of the treaty. Obi-Wan also knows the Mandalorian will detest it and he will be the one on the receiving end of that.

The Commander is going to be dragged into the world of Republic politics the second he enters Coruscanti airspace, and he’s going to have to adapt to life at the Temple too. Obi-Wan isn’t proud of it, but he knows many of his fellow Jedi are less than happy about having a Mandalorian in their home. Even less happy about it being a _Fett_. He knows he was chosen to be the Commander’s escort because of his past experience protecting Mandalorians – from themselves and their enemies – and because of his political acumen and combat skill. 

With the state Coruscant was in when they left, he knows he’s going to need all of his experience to stop the Commander from being eaten alive.

Obi-Wan suspects that he’s not giving the Commander enough credit. He has beaten Obi-Wan in the field just as many times as he’s lost, and when their forces come head-to-head there’s rarely a guarantee of an outcome. The Commander is resourceful, Obi-Wan has found, and definitely not to be underestimated. The problem is that Obi-Wan knows as much about the Commander outside of the context of war as the Commander does about the bureaucracy of Republic politics. He’s going to have to live alongside him for the foreseeable future, and despite himself he can’t bring himself to do anything more than promise to tolerate the man who has killed so many of his own soldiers. 

It certainly doesn’t help that Kote Fett looks so unnervingly like his father. 

The same threatening aura swamps his presence, and the harsh lines of his scar makes him seem all the more formidable. It frames eyes that are shrewd and hard, different to where the Mand’alor’s burn hot with rage. It gives him a calmer impression, but one that is no less dangerous. Something Obi-Wan gets the full weight of when the prince looks sharply in his direction, forcing Obi-Wan to meet his gaze or look away. Obi-Wan can’t back down; that would hardly be a good first impression, and it leaves them in a strange stalemate until he’s addressed by name.

“Master Kenobi,” the mediator says, “do you vow to protect Marshal Commander Fett in accordance with chapter seven of the Peace Accord between the Mandalore the Great and the Galactic Republic, verse one through four-hundred and twelve?”

“I do.”

“And do you agree to keep him within your protection and ensure no harm will come unto his person until such a time as the Peace Accord is formally dissolved or all of its conditions have been satisfied?”

“I promise.”

“Marshal Commander, do you accept this proposal?”

“I do.” 

It is, Obi-Wan realises the first time he’s heard the Commander speak. His basic is accented heavily by the harsh lilt of Mando’a and it lacks the softening of Concord Dawn’s influence that his father’s retains even now. It’s obvious that he’s been born and raised on Mandalore – almost certainly in Keldabe itself – and here, that only asserts his authority. Back on Coruscant it will not be such a blessing.

“And you will do everything in you power to ensure the terms of the treaty are satisfied for the benefit of Mandalore?”

“You have my word.”

Obi-Wan is surprised by the last part. It’s not a part of the itinerary, or even remotely similar to Ahsoka’s vow, and yet the prince seems to be clearly expecting it. His sincerity is palpable in the Force and Obi-Wan is grateful that despite every between them, they are genuinely united by peace. He just hopes that’s enough.

Both of them sign the treaty where the mediator directs them too, and there’s a sinking finality to the wording of it. Obi-Wan has a bad feeling that his vow to keep the prince safe is going to get at least on of them killed, and he reasons that for the sake of peace and Ahsoka, it best be him. Which isn’t the most comforting of thoughts.

It is also, he realises, the end of the signing.

The Mand’alor draws his son aside and they have a hushed conversation in Mando’a too rapid for Obi-Wan to follow. Ahsoka slinks back to his side after addressing Master Koon, and he summons a smile to give her.

“Goodbye, Ahsoka.”

“Goodbye, Master,” she replies, giving him a bow that would be a slight to a more austere Jedi of master rank. He can only take comfort in the familiarity.

Captain Fett appears behind her, and coughs pointedly, gesturing wordlessly to one of the doors leading away from the throne room. Ahsoka barely hides his grimace of discomfort.

“Stay safe,” he says and she nods, allowing herself to be led away.

As she turns, he finds he can’t help himself from calling out.

“Ahsoka?”

She pauses, turning back towards him. “Yes, Master?”

“May the Force be with you.”


	7. Chapter 7

He finds himself pacing incessantly from one end of the cabin to the other. It’s been barely an hour since the kel dor Jetii left him at the door to his room and told Cody to make himself comfortable, but he’s already gratingly close to his limit. There’s something about only being a few transapristeel sheets away from his mortal enemy that refuses to let him relax, and there isn’t a whole lot he can do with the pent up adrenaline his body is providing in response. Most of his luggage is in the hold of the ship, and besides the small carry-on crate of clothes and datapads which don’t hold his attention, he has nothing to occupy his time.

So, pacing it is.

If he takes smaller steps he can make the length of the cabin last five paces before he has to turn on his heel. The width of his pauldrons prevents him from moving his arms overmuch, but he can’t bring himself to strip off his armour. Not with so many Jetii so close at hand. The whole ship reeks of danger and threat, and Cody can feel the hammering pulse in his temple threatening a stress headache. He’s already checked his blaster and all of his charger packs twice, and it’s only the lack of arm space that stops him from having one of his smaller daggers to turn in his hand.

It’s times like this that he usually falls back on the comfort of his _vode_. Cody considers his cousins to be his brothers in all the ways that matter; they’ve grown up together, just as they’ve bled on the battlefield together, and the bond that’s forged makes them inseparable. He knows they’ll have his back, regardless of what happens, just as he would be by their side in a heartbeat if they asked him to be. That he knows they _won’t_ , not when he has a greater duty, one for Mandalore herself, is of little consequence now.

The point is that they have a large support network and whenever one of them falls down, or needs a brother to help when it gets too much for one man alone to stand, there’s always someone there to offer a hand back up. Or in this case a voice. If he knew that Rex wouldn’t wound himself laughing at Cody for barely making it a galactic standard hour without his presence, he’d already have called him. 

Cody stops his pacing.

He hasn’t seen Wolffe in months. A routine comm won’t be out of place, especially because, like Ponds, he’s stuck playing buffer in the Outer Sieges, ready for the truce to fall through. Cody could call him, and maybe even be able to disguise his nervous intentions behind an informal report request. His is _technically_ Wolffe’s superior officer. 

Cody sits on the edge of the bed and connects the call before he can reconsider. It’s a testament to how much Wolffe must be worrying about him that it barely rings twice.

“Do I need to come and save you already?”

Cody scoffs, which doubles as a way to hide how embarrassingly _grateful_ he is to see his cousin’s face. “Never, in twenty-six years, have I needed you to rescue me.”

Wolffe looks unconvinced, but since the bastard doesn’t actually have an example, he just rolls his eyes. 

They’re the same age and there’s only a month separating them, though it’s common knowledge Wolffe will die on the hill that he is the oldest. Cody’s convinced it’s because when he was younger, he’d actually thought they _were_ brothers by blood, and Wolffe was trying to usurp his place as his father’s heir. He knows better now; knows that the throne isn’t something anyone who knows the weight of rule actually _wants_ , knows that Wolffe will always be his _vod_ no matter what happens, knows that like Cody, Wolffe doesn’t want to be caught dead within twenty feet of the throne.

“Are you alright?” he asks in that gruff manner he does when he’s actually being genuine.

Cody is honestly a little touched. “They haven’t tried anything yet.”

Which, he supposes, is the whole point of the treaty. Even if a small, dark part of him is twitchy enough to want an excuse to slip back to the surety of knowing who his real enemy is. Seeing a _Jetii_ and knowing that only one of them would be walking away at least had a sense of clarity to it. And it was far kinder on his blood pressure.

Wolffe grunts. “What _have_ they done?”

“Nothing. Since we took off, I haven’t even seen them.”

“They’re probably watching you with their Force-voodoo.”

As if Cody hadn’t thought of that. “There aren’t any cameras in the room,” he says instead, because that is something he _can_ control. The Force and the Jetii’s use of it is something he can’t even begin to comprehend, and his ability to fight it is limited to the battlefield. Not the more subtle art of subterfuge. But physical technology _is_ something he can handle.

“That doesn’t matter, don’t let your guard down.” Wolffe speaks with a similar intensity to Bly the morning prior, but this time, now he’s away from the safety of Keldabe and his _aliit_ , it suddenly seems like less of a jest and more of a dire warning. “One word, and we’ll stop at nothing, not even the Jetii fortress, until your shebs are back on the left side of your buir’s throne.”

The hope that Wolffe can’t see through his pathetic need for comfort is in tatters, but Cody is still about to argue that he’s no damsel that needs saving when there’s a knock at the door. It’s unlikely to be the staff or the crew at this late hour, and the hair at the nape of his neck reflexively stands on end. The way it only does around _Jetii_.

Wolffe tenses in response to Cody’s own reaction, and Cody’s sure that he reaches for his weapon off the view of the holo. Cody forces himself to leave his own on the edge of his bunk as he stands, the holo with Wolffe’s figure in one hand.

“Enter.”

The door opens and General Kenobi is stood on the other side, his hands folded into the sleeves of his robes in the way that the Jetii do to conceal their weapons. Or hide their shaking hands. Wolffe honest-to-Manda _growls_ , reminding everyone why nobody uses his real name, and Cody senses a diplomatic incident looming.

“I’ll call you back later,” he says stiffly, and turns off the comm, uncomfortable talking to his vod with a Jetii present.

“My apologies, Commander,” Kenobi says with a slight bow. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I only hoped you would walk with me for a while. We are to be in each other’s presence rather a lot from now on and I feel introductions are in order.”

Despite the fact that Cody would quite literally rather swallow his own tongue, he can hardly refuse _,_ and Kenobi isn’t exactly _wrong_. Even if he makes Cody’s skin crawl in disgust.

“Lead the way,” he replies, reaching to clip his bucket to his belt, fingers itching for the blaster he leaves on the bed. Because he meant the vows he made; he wants this peace.

Kenobi steps back into the corridor, deserted at the late hour, and heads the way that Cody thinks leads to the starboard viewport. The ship is a medium sized passenger cruiser, nothing that would be found anywhere near a battle unless something has gone horrifically wrong. It’s certainly no Jetii star destroyer. He’s never seen its like before for that exact reason, and he has no real idea of the layout, but all ships of this kind are largely the same and it isn’t so different from Cody’s own personal cruiser.

The one he’s left behind in Keldabe.

“I am sorry for the interruption,” Kenobi says when it becomes apparent Cody isn’t going to be the one to broach conversation.

Cody tightens his mouth to stop himself from grimacing, making sure his shields are tighter than they’ve ever been. It wouldn’t do for them to slip and allow the Jetii even limited access to his mind. Maybe he _should_ have brought his blaster with him, even if the odds of him making it off a ship alive with so many Jetii present are slim.

Kenobi, after all, is a famed killer of Mandalorians. And Cody knows that better than most.

He sighs when Cody doesn’t answer and stops abruptly in the middle of the corridor. Cody stops too, just short of a militaristic halt and turns to look at Kenobi expectantly. 

“I understand that the history between our people is complicated, Commander, but for both our sakes and the sake of the people we’re trying to protect, this would be a lot easier if we could be civil.”

Cody swallows down the retort that Jetii are awfully good at civility when it suits their agenda, good at playing the part of the victim and peacemaker, good at hiding the violence they can unleash at the first hint from their precious Force. He swallows the urge to say Kenobi is worse at that than most Jetii. The famed Negotiator is also a famed killer. “It would.”

Kenobi frowns, and Cody wonders if the General expected him to disagree. It isn’t as if it’s the General that is going back to the ancient fortress of his oldest enemy; he doesn’t have to worry about upsetting the wrong person at the consequence of his life and shattered peace. Cody, on the other hand, is all too aware he _does_.

“What am I expected to do when we arrive?” he asks and pointedly carries on walking, the closest he can make himself get to a peace offering.

He knows that in a month from now, if the treaty still holds, he will have to stand before the Republic’s Senate to see it ratified in the eyes of their government. What he must do before then has been left to the mercy of the Jetii, just as their _ijaat adiik_ has been left to his buir.

The General takes long strides to get back to his side, and slips back into pace. “You will accompany me on my business and learn about our way of life. I believe that was the agreement.”

Cody shoots him a suspicious look. He knows enough about the way they train Jetii, about the way a cadet will follow their buir around until they’re of age and have appropriated enough skill to make it on their own. He grudgingly admits it’s not _so_ different to the way it’s done by the Mando’ade. “I’m to be your cadet?”

“You won’t be a padawan exactly, but you will occupy the position a padawan would.”

Cody grits his teeth. Right, because Jetii don’t have normal families. Their children are _padawans_ , and their buir are _masters_. “I’m not a youngling.” He’s barely a decade younger than Kenobi.

“No, but you’re with us to learn,” Kenobi says mildly. “And this is how we teach.”

He would love to point out that he’s only _nominally_ here to learn. In reality he’s a hostage, and as long as he behaves it doesn’t really matter what he does. But he doesn’t voice that concern because he supposes learning Jetii teachings must be preferable to being locked inside a cell. And it _is_ better to know your enemy.

“Very well,” he agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite living in a plague house, I've finished my first exam and thought I'd edit this to celebrate! There's already about fifteen hundred words of this written, so updates should be fairly regular even with exams Xx
> 
> Ijaat adiik – honoured child  
> Buir – father   
> Aliit - family


	8. Chapter 8

After Cody goes, Rex finds himself at a loss for what to do. It’s been years since the both of them have been stationed in Keldabe at the same time with more than a few days to spare, and even longer since they haven’t been interrupted by a galactic crisis. Their buir had needed them close for when the Jetii came, and had ordered Ponds and Wolffe to relieve the both of them and their battalions in the Outer Sieges so they could return. The build-up to the peace treaty had given them the best part of a fortnight with nothing particularly pressing to do, and they’d slipped into a routine with each other that they hadn’t had since they were _ade_. Mornings had been reserved for sparring and training, followed by lunch and troop requests and paperwork, and – when either of them were feeling especially paranoid – strategizing.

The space left in his day is the reason he justifies finding himself outside of the Jetii’s door. He’s left her mostly alone, sparing the time to check up on her in the evening and otherwise leaving her in the care of the Guard. But with first Cody gone and now Bly – sent by his buir to test the mood of the senior clan heads after Vizsla’s betrayal – Rex is miserably alone. The rest of the 501st are on well-deserved leave, dispersed across Mandalore. The few who have stayed in Keldabe are visiting family, something Rex would never dream of infringing on. He’s spent his whole life surrounded by brothers and his verde, and it’s rare that he gets any time to himself.

He didn’t expect to hate it.

The Jetii has been made his responsibility, and it’s his duty to check on her. It’s certainly not because he’s _bored_. That’s what he tells himself as he knocks on her door, greeting the Guard that’s replaced Hound this afternoon. There’s no answer and he counts slowly with each breath, the same way he would if he were timing a detonator, before he knocks again, harder this time. There’s still no answer, and next to him Anchor and Myta stiffen.

“Commander?” he calls, loudly. “Jetii?”

Rex curses and draws both of his blasters, slamming the door controls open. The room inside is still and cold, and he shivers despite his armour as the wind grasps at his face. He sweeps the greeting room, inching towards the open balcony door, gesturing for Myta and Anchor to check the other rooms as he ventures outside. He’s fearful that the Jetii has already run, on his watch no less, or been taken by someone who shares Vizsla’s mind. Already he’s contemplating how his name will go down in history as the reason the peace failed.

The balcony is wide, designed to catch the most of the evening sun as is dips below the brow of the hill Keldabe is built on. It creates a space hidden from view as the balcony curves around to connect to the bedroom in a way the veranda in Rex’s rooms don’t. Hidden there, the Jetii is sat with her legs crossed, hands resting on her knees and face tilted to catch the warmth of the sun, a grey robe draped around her shoulders to keep off the worst of the wind’s bite. Her eyes are closed and she gives no indication she knows he’s there, but Rex has too much experience to trust that assumption.

Hesitantly, he lowers his pistols. “Commander?” he asks stiffly.

This time she must hear. Her eyes fly open with the efficient fear of discovery he knows can only come from experience, and she pushes herself swiftly to her feet. “Captain, my apologies,” she says, her voice as guarded as the way she slides her hands into her sleeves. “Is there something I can do for you?”

It reminds him of the way Kenobi had dismissed his entourage before the signing a few mornings before, all guarded words and polite veneer. She is his _bu'ad_ , he supposes it is only to be expected.

“She’s not here, Sir,” Myta says as she steps out of the bedroom door and onto the balcony, pausing at the sight of Tano holding herself unnaturally still near the edge. “Oh.”

Tano frowns. “I didn’t know you were looking for me.”

“That tends to happen when you disappear.”

“I didn’t disappear,” she replies tersely. “I was meditating.”

That sounds like Jetii _osik_ to him, but he doesn’t think she’ll be more forthcoming if he calls her out on it. As long as she keeps it to herself, he tells himself he doesn’t care.

“Right, well…” Rex bites the inside of his cheek. It’s not as if he’s had to make small talk with a Jetii before. It’s not exactly part of the _resol’nare_. Conversations are usually _shorter_ between their people. He certainly wishes this one were.

“Did you need us to escort you for your walk, Sir?” Myta asks him, reminding him why he’s here at all.

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary.” He doubts she’ll try anything so shortly after the treaty has been signed, but in the event she _does_ there are enough Guard in the palace grounds to stop her getting far. “That is, if you want to go for a walk?” Rex asks her.

If she doesn’t want to, he’s hardly going to push the issue. He’s already reconsidering his own offer. Most Mandalorians wouldn’t put themselves within the same sector of a Jetii unless they were spoiling for a fight, and Rex _isn’t_. Even if he should be, like a proper Mando’ade. The truth is he’s tired; of hating and fighting, of losing himself the to the consuming rage that burnt through him after his mother’s death. He’s lost too much for too long, and he isn’t even old yet, despite how he feels otherwise. He wants desperately for the peace his father has made to hold. Which means he must help to hold it, regardless of the conflict within where his bitterness wars with his common sense.

Something about Tano’s expression looks relieved before she manages to mask it back behind that indecipherable look she wears, and Rex almost feels guilty for leaving her alone for so long.

“Of course,” she replies smoothly. “Lead the way.”

Rex turns on his heel, trusting she’ll follow as he slips his blasters back into their holsters but allowing his fingers to brush them as he walks. The Jetii is silent as he waves inside at Anchor to stand down and shows her out into the corridor beyond. It takes him a moment to realise why that’s so unsettling; where his footsteps echo, hers make no sound on the marble. She could inch her way up behind any guard or patrol and they’d never hear her coming. They’d be dead before they knew why. If she wanted to, she could sneak up on him without breaking a sweat and that makes him feel helpless in a way he hasn’t since his buir told him their mother wasn’t coming home.

“Where are we going, Captain?”

Rex eyes her without turning as she looks steadfastly ahead, not looking at the art the way she had the first night she was here. “I thought you might like a tour of the palace.”

She inclines her head. “And why does that require the honour of your presence? I imagine you have far more important things to be doing than be my chaperone.”

Rex tries not to grimace as he thinks of his buir’s orders, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Apparently not.”

They walk in silence as he shows her out into the terrace gardens of the royal wing. It’s the first place – and if he’s honest, _only_ – he can think to show her where he knows that the sole Mando’ade are the Guard hidden in the alcoves. The palace proper and the training grounds beyond will be teaming with servants, courtiers, politicians and petitioners here to see his buir. Rex isn’t entirely convinced they’re ready to see the Jetii and since his father hasn’t explicitly _ordered_ it, he thinks it’s best she stay hidden.

“I hadn’t expected it to be like this,” she says, lingering by one of the vines heavy with purple fruit. His mother had cultivated most of this garden, and the Ryloth fruit trees had been some of her last work. Now they’re carefully tended to by Kyvn, the gardener.

There isn’t anything malicious in her words, but Rex finds he’s bitter all the same. “What did you expect. Transparisteel domes and duracrete gardens?”

He’s seen Republic propaganda. He knows how Mandalore is presented to the Core.

This isn't Sundari.

“I don’t-” Tano looks at him hesitantly and shakes her head. “We have gardens like this in the Temple. I hadn’t expected to find a piece of home here.”

Rex… doesn’t know what to do with that oddly personal- _vulnerable_ piece of information from a Jetii. “They’re from Ryloth,” he offers instead.

The Jetii stiffens.

“What?” he asks irritably.

“Ryloth?” she repeats, and Rex can almost see her hackles rising. “The planet you invaded.”

“Please,” Rex scoffs, “it was hardly an invasion.” By the time Mandalorian forces had arrived in the Ryloth system, it had been so corrupt and crippled by constant slaver ring attacks that there hadn’t been much opposition to organised military. His buir had all but shown up and Ryloth had been his. Right up until the Jetii and their Republic forces had blockaded it to try and reclaim their lost taxpayer. “It was saved from the Republic’s indifference.”

Rex has seen Ryloth with his own eyes and he’s heard stories of what it was like before. Tano _hasn’t_ , she wouldn’t have been more than an infant when it was still a part of the Republic. In the years between it’s _prospered_. Their people have mixed and lived alongside each other, Mandalore offering protection in return for trade. He knows that two of Cody’s men – riduur – in the 212th had found their daughter while on a protective rotation there.

“It was _conquered_ ,” the Jetii replies vehemently. “One of many.”

“Maybe,” Rex shrugs. “But there hasn’t been a single successful slaver attack in the past two decades.” Something his buir is _incredibly_ proud of. His expansion into the Outer Rim and Hutt Space had been solely with the aim of eradicating the slaver rings he himself had been trapped in before he reclaimed the title of Mand’alor from Kryze and her upstart government after Galidraan. Now that the Republic and Mandalore have reached a stalemate in the Outer Sieges there are reports of the slavers growing bold again in a desperate attempt to regain a footing on the worlds they’ve lost, using the unwillingness of Mandalore and her allies to be the first to reignite the conflict.

“You use it’s spice mines.”

“So did the Republic. At least they’re no longer run by slave labour.”

Tano leans forwards on her feet to draw herself to his eyelevel. “Prisoners _are_ slave labour.” Rex opens his mouth to argue but she draws herself back and holds up a hand, taking a deep breath. “I’d like to go back to my room please.”

Rex tries to pinpoint where exactly where the conversation went so wrong but gives up. Jetii can’t be reasoned with, after all.

He purposefully doesn’t acknowledge the amusement he can feel rolling off Myta at their swift return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ade – children  
> Verde – soldiers  
> Bu’ad – grandchild  
> Osik – shit  
> Resol’nare – the six actions that a Mandalorian of the warrior culture must follow
> 
> If anyone's curious about how online uni exams are going, my uni submitted corrections to questions via email during the exam when I wasn't checking my phone, cos, ya know, I was in an exam. So, I've definitely answered a lot of the last paper wrong. They also gave us the wrong exam. We love to see where all the debt is going!
> 
> In other news, I've decided this is going to be my comfort fic (the comfort will come later - maybe a lot later, but I promise it'll show up at some point!), especially because we're now in tier 5 of a 3 tier system and we need *something*.
> 
> Stay safe Xx


	9. Chapter 9

Once they enter Coruscanti air space, a smaller shuttle transports them down to the planet’s surface. Having elected to leave his blaster in his crate for _diplomatic_ reasons, Cody has nothing but his armour. Surrounded by a dozen Jetii of varying seniority he feels unnervingly outnumbered and outgunned, a feeling that only gets exponentially worse at the sight of the welcoming party waiting for them near one of the fortress’ sweeping archways. In all fairness he’s entered a battle equipped with less – this time there is the vibroblade in his boot – but rarely are the Jetii so concentrated, or so sure of their own position. Rarely is Cody so unprepared and underdressed. 

Even from the safety of his buy’ce, and with all the Force sensitivity of a particularly stubborn brick, he can feel the eyes on him as he walks down the ramp at Kenobi’s side. It helps to keep his eyes ahead, above the heads of his companions, as he takes in just how _immense_ the Jetii fortress is. It stretches up towards the sky, and from this angle he can see a tower that reaches even further, level with the highest ship lanes, able to look down on those far below. He’d bet his right gauntlet that’s the tower where the Jetii Council congregate; not very well protected from the air, but impressive nonetheless.

The whole structure is built in a defensive pyramid made from thick duracrete, and looks impressively resilient despite its many transparisteel windows and spindly towers. It looks as if it could withstand a siege for far longer than any opponent could wish to hold one. No artillery the Mand’alor would be willing to use that close to civilians would penetrate more than a few levels, while the Jetii huddled safely below. And that’s without considering its foundations; with how big the the fortress is and how high it’s built above the rest of Coruscant, there must be hundreds of ways in and out of the lower levels that attackers could never hope to completely seal.

Cody makes the mistake of looking down as he makes that estimation.

Coruscant is nothing he could have prepared himself for. He’s no stranger to big cities – _Keldabe_ is a big city and he grew up there, and he’s seen half a hundred great cities during his campaigns and envoys – but this is something else entirely. For all that beings are packed in tightly in every inch of space, he’s hit starkly by how little _life_ there is. As far as his eye can see, the only green comes from the flashing of neon lights and speeders zipping to and fro. There are no parks or plants anywhere, and they’re far too high up for the mountains to rise above them like they do at home. Cody isn’t even sure they aren’t _above_ the mountains here.

“Alright?” Kenobi ask him discreetly.

Cody can only jerk his buy’ce in affirmative.

He can _only_ be alright.

“Coruscant can be a little… _overwhelming_ for those who haven’t been before.”

“It certainly tries to be,” Cody mutters.

He can see where the surface buildings dip in places and the levels below are visible where blocks are defined in rigid formation. Despite the impressive size of everything, Cody gets the stifling sensation he’s trapped. There are too many lifeforms in too little space. Every self-preservatory instinct he’s ever had makes itself known in the tightness of his chest.

He can’t imagine for a moment that anything here ever stops.

Cody barely has the chance to brace himself before they reach the delegation. Coruscanti senators are nothing like the politicians Cody’s had to interact with from the Parliament of Mandalorian Systems. They look every inch the mockery of flamboyant birds the holonet makes of them, and the elaborately impractical dress code they adhere to doesn’t look like it would stand up to any kind of fight. Their lack of forethought, for their own personal well being and the jobs of their security, angers him. Irrationally really, since he doesn’t care about any of them.

At the centre of the senators stands an old man in plum robes who needs no introduction. The Jetii bow to the Chancellor, and all Cody can think is that he looks more dangerous than he does on the holobroadcasts or in the files attached to debriefings, despite his fragility and advanced age. Cody’s seen _dangerous_ before, in many forms, and there’s something simply _off_ about him that puts Cody more on edge

“Masters Jedi,” Palpatine greets. “Marshal Commander Fett. I’m glad to see your journey was uneventful. It is a pleasure to have you here, Commander.”

A shiver threatens to run down his spine when the Chancellor looks him in the eye despite his visor, though there isn’t a particular reason _why_. Politicians are all slimy and self-serving, and the Chancellor of the Republic is naturally the worst among them. That’s what Cody tells himself is the problem. That and being surrounded by so many Jetii so far from home. It would be more surprising if he _weren’t_ unsettled.

With iron in his stomach, he reaches up and removes his helmet. As is befitting of meeting the ruler of his enemy. He sees the way the senators shift hungrily to take in his face, the way their eyes linger on his scar for moments too long.

“I’m glad to be here,” he replies, supressing the urge to wince. Words have never been his to wield. “I hope this is the start of a new peace between our people.”

It’s the sort of thing Bly would tell him to say, and he’s always been the most diplomatic among them. Cody had argued that if Bly grew his hair out, they could switch places and no-one would ever notice. It certainly would be better for sowing the seeds of peace, but as with everything else, this is something only the heir can do.

“And I hope it will be long and prosperous,” one of the senators says. She’s a small woman, wearing a heavily embroidered gown of lilac and her hair wrapped around a golden halo. “War helps neither of our people. I look forward to working together for a better galaxy, free from it and the suffering it brings.”

She seems sincere, though Cody isn’t foolish enough to take her at her word. He’s met enough politicians to know most of them are empty.

“Indeed we all do, my dear,” the Chancellor replies.

It occurs to Cody just how close he is to the ruler of the Republic. It would only be too easy to step forward and draw the blade from his boot, to sink it between the man’s ribs before anyone could reach them. Cody would almost certainly be dead moments later, but he has many vode to replace him and by the time the Republic have squabbled themselves to a new election, his buir could have moved on the Core.

Except, of course, they could never hold it. Cody isn’t sure they’d even _want_ to. The entire planet is a den of crime and corruption wrapped in the illusion of diplomacy. For his buir to even begin to unravel it, even unopposed, would take more years than he had left. And it certainly isn’t something _Cody_ wants to inherit.

Better to make peace with them, and secure the future of the planets they’ve already saved.

“Forgive us Chancellor, the journey may have been uneventful, but it was still long and I think we could all benefit from freshening up inside,” Kenobi cuts in gracefully. If he weren’t a Jetii, Cody would kiss him. “If you will excuse the Commander and I, I’m sure Master Windu can answer any questions you may have.” He shoots his fellow Councillor an apologetic glance and reaches out to steer Cody's elbow towards the fortress. Cody finds himself flinching out of the way before he can stop himself. Kenobi smoothly turns it into a gesture for Cody to follow as he leads the way up the fortress steps and away from the politicians.

“My apologise, Commander.”

Cody jerks his chin in acknowledgement, too embarrassed to reply.

The stares from within quickly make all thoughts of the Jetii’s proximity irrelevant. From the second they cross the threshold, every eye is on them. It’s almost as if the Jetii were lingering within the entrance, waiting for them to arrive. With their kriffing Force and all the forewarning they need, Cody wouldn’t put it past them.

Instinctively he straightens his back, slipping into alertness. The temptation to be what they think he is – menacing and cruel, moments away from madness – in an effort to keep them away is strong, and it’s with conscious effort that he reminds himself he isn’t here as their enemy but a friend. Which is _laughable_ when he considers how many Mando’ade have died at the hands of those in the fortress, or simply at the hands of the man at his side.

He wonders if the half of his battalion Kenobi decimated in the second battle of Geonosis would ever forgive Cody for not striking him down where he stands. He wonders if this peace betrays them, if Cody’s hand in it offends their memory. Then he shakes his head, because the voice sounds concerningly like Vizsla’s. Peace betrays no-one. If anything it honours them, and it’s just the hostility of the fortress that’s working its way inside his head.

Instead of slamming his bucket on to avoid the heavy weight of judgement being sent his way, he forces himself to keep his face neutral, belaying none of his own mistrust or hatred. It’s easier to pretend he’s in Parliament or in front his father’s council, standing before an irate Vizsla, an enemy he can’t acknowledge as he enemy, but he knows the dangers of anyway. He’s practiced at deflecting barbed words and veiled threats, that’s simply a consequence of being a political pawn from birth.

For the same reasons, he’s also practiced at withstanding the stares.

There isn’t much that takes precedence over Cody’s identity as a soldier, except perhaps that he is a brother. He’s no stranger to the hatred that seeps into the air at the sight of his armour or the mythosaur emblazoned on his pauldron when he’s in hostile territory, but here that effect seems to be magnified tenfold. He’s used to the stares and the quick glances of mistrust, or subtle reach for weapons. He’s even used to parents shielding their children from him, though the Manda know he would never move to hurt younglings. Cody is used to not being liked, to being _hated_. What he isn’t used to is the sense of superiority the Jetii ooze when they look at him. He can feel the way they see him and think of nothing but _savage_.

That it affects him at all is pitiful. The opinions of his enemy should mean nothing.

Their pretence of superiority and justice may not be inherently savage, but it speaks of a blindness far more damaging. He’s seen the aftermath of Jetii _help_ ; he’s seen the ruined governments, he’s seen the way the slavers move in when they leave and he’s seen the terrorists that rise in the vacuum. Better to be a savage, than indifferent.

Cody doesn’t understand how they can claim to fight for the people they hold themselves so far removed from. They look down on everyone from their fortress in the sky and proclaim _Cody_ is the monster for living below them. The older Jetii they pass in the halls, the ones they call _masters_ , seem the best at it; holding themselves with a sense of false serenity that borders on aloofness as Cody passes them, though he can see more than one aborted move for their jetii’kad. The younger Jetii are not so good at hiding their distain – and even fear – of him. Some even seem to spoil for a fight, though Kenobi’s hard stares stop any of them from stepping forwards.

It should be a relief when they reach their destination, one of many doors lining a residential corridor, but Cody only feels more trapped. There’s only one exit.

“These are my quarters,” Kenobi says, opening the door. “You’ve been placed here as well, though should you want your own quarters that can be arranged.”

Cody bites back the snap that _of course_ he’d prefer his own quarters, because Kenobi was right about them both trying to be civil. Kenobi steps past him into the rooms beyond and Cody follows reluctantly a few places behind. Inside isn’t what he expected at all. The Jetii have a reputation for their brutal lack of sentimentality, and Cody realises he expected something colder and less personal than the riot of mismatched furniture and potted plants that Kenobi seems to have collected.

The over all effect is a sense of warmth and comfort he wouldn’t have expected at all. Kenobi is as restrained as the Jetii come and for his quarters to feel _homely_ is at odds with the profile Cody has built of the renowned military strategist in his head. He stands in the entrance, behind the low couch facing out towards the Coruscanti skyscape, staring in confusion. Books and plants overflow off the shelves, taking over as they please, even curling around the edge of the meditation mat laid out in front of the transpairsteel window. There’s a door leading off to the left and right, and small kitchenette taking up a third of the space of the greeting room. 

Kenobi clears his throat a little awkwardly, and gestures to the door to the right. “That’s your room. It used to be Anakin’s so if you find any machine parts I’m sorry. He was storing something in there, but I made him clear it out.”

“Skywalker?” Cody’s voice strains a little.

He doesn’t want to be within three klicks of anything General Skywalker has so much as _looked_ at.

“Yes,” Kenobi replies, a little too coolly for Cody’s comfort. “My former padawan.”

Right. Never insult someone’s _adiik_.

Cody nods stiffly, wanting nothing more than to be alone at last. It suddenly occurs to him how much he’s going to have to be in Kenobi’s presence, and it makes his eye twitch in a way Wolffe would be proud of. Cody’s never had the same level of fanatical obsession with the war that he’s witnessed in some verde, but he’s always done his duty, and so while he’d never openly claim to have a personal nemesis like his buir would with Dooku, Kenobi might be considered his by the rest of the 212th. There are few other Republic generals who have such a record when it comes to outmanoeuvring and defeating him. Cody is _good_ at what he does, he was raised with no other choice but to be – the Mand’alor’s heir must be capable of taking their place at any moment – but Kenobi remains his equal.

To ask them to live together after the suffering they’ve inflicted upon one another is a cruel and personal hand dealt against them by the galaxy.

“I’ll leave you to settle in,” Kenobi says pointedly when Cody fails to answer, disappearing behind the door to the left.

Alone in his new room – _Skywalker’s_ former room – Cody stands and stares. The room is small and clearly a utilitarian use of space. Stripped of Kenobi’s clutter it’s so very _Jetii_ that a part of Cody is almost satisfied his initial assessment hadn’t been wrong. There’s a low bed that takes up most of the room, and waist-height shelving under the transparisteel window to his left. A door on the other side of the bed leads to his own fresher. 

It’s a far cry from his rooms in Keldabe, but that isn’t what makes him pause. Cody has slept in more military cots than he has fourposter beds. Barracks, even with his own officer’s quarters, had been far from comfortable. If anything, the luxury of the palace makes him uncomfortable when he’s station there – everything is too pristine and unaffected by the war waging throughout the galaxy for him to ever truly feel at home. His problem isn’t the sparsity of the room, because he will always be a soldier first and he will always have had worse, but rather that he suddenly recalls Rex’s joke. Though he isn’t sure this is what his brother had pictured when he’d said Cody would be sleeping with the enemy.

The knowledge that General Skywalker once slept in this bed makes him want to tear the mattress from the frame and burn it for good measure. Fumigation seems reasonable at the very least. On the few occasions he’s seen Skywalker the man looks to have forgotten that hygiene is a necessity and not a choice. Rumour has it the man eats _bugs_. 

Cody pulls back the sheets suspiciously. They seem clean, even if the smell of mechanical oil and grease lingers in the room. There’s nothing in any of the cabinets or on any of the shelves, and the attached fresher looks to have been cleaned by maintenance. The Jetii have made the effort to clean the room for him and that’s the only thing that stops him from sleeping on the floor instead.

He eyes where his crates have already been stacked in the corner of his room and sighs. Then he begins to unpack, wondering how he’s supposed to live alongside the man who gave him his scar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes (spelling and otherwise) are mine! We'll blame it on the lack of sleep Xx
> 
> Buy’ce – bucket  
> Jetii’kad – lightsaber  
> Verde – soldiers  
> Adiik – child


	10. Chapter 10

Bly sets the ship down on the landing pad to the south of the stronghold after an overly-hostile exchange with ground control. He’s not even surprised when the greeting party is made up entirely of the Countess’ guards and not the Countess herself. _Officially_ , he’s here to survey Clan Wren’s status – the number of recovering troops, gross staples contribution to the war effort, that sort of thing – because the Mand’alor doesn’t want to sow seeds of panic or hostility with the real reason. 

It’s the kind of work that should be done by an administrator and wouldn’t require to be met by a clan head if that administrator weren’t _Bly_. Occasionally routine visits like this one can double as a state visit when a lesser member of the royal household, like Bly himself, is sent out instead as a reassurance to the furthest clans that their Mand’alor hasn’t forgotten them. And a member of the royal household _does_ usually warrant a welcome party by their host. It isn’t as if his visit is a surprise, they knew Bly was coming.

It makes him wish he’d taken Galle’s offer of an escort. It would have been too obvious a show of aggression, but the comfort of his verd would go a long way to soothing the tension he can feel creeping into his spine as he’s escorted through the stronghold and into its throne room.

Ursa Wren sits on her white marbled throne, a guard in the colours of grey and gold – the colours of House Wren – on either side of her. More guard other entrances and exits to the room, and the courtiers that linger are just as heavily armoured. There’s nothing wrong with that _per se_ , they’re Mandalorian and they’re at war. The clan head is expected to make a show of her strength.

Just not against Bly.

“Countess,” he greets, coming to a stop at the foot of the stairs to her throne.

It’s her stronghold and she has every right to sit up on it, but she fails to rise to greet him and Bly can’t help but take that as a slight.

“Marshal Commander,” she replies, a grim set to her mouth, “we are honoured by your presence.”

Bly’s buy’ce hangs from his belt, resting against his hip. Hers glares menacingly down at him from the foot of her throne.

“I hope it doesn’t prove a burden,” he replies diplomatically. “I’m only here to assure the Mand’alor that Clan Wren prospers in these trying times.”

“As much as any clan can. Name what you need and my verde will see you are accommodated in your task.”

“Thank you, my Lady.”

Their exchange is short, which might be mistaken for expediency if it weren’t also so curt.

Bly is ushered out of the room by a non-descript guard and he can’t help but get the impression that they’re intentionally trying to get rid of him as fast as is polite. Clan Wren have never been the friendliest supporters of his uncle, but they’ve never done anything that would question their loyalty either. And yet, as a lesser house of Clan Vizsla and beholden to Tor Vizsla’s jurisdiction, their loyalty is in question by his uncle after the display over dinner, and Bly is beginning to suspect they _know_ it.

The rooms he’s given are nice enough, and there’s subtle signs everywhere that despite the war Clan Wren _do_ prosper. His uncle’s quest to rid the outer rim of slavery gave the hundred-year war a new lease of life after Galidraan, giving the Mando’ade a justification for not just holding onto the territories the Republic was already at war with them for, but to continue their expansion. With the new direction of the war, his uncle succeeded in uniting the clans under a clear purpose, banishing the need for any remaining loyalties to Kyr’tsad, making his rule stronger than ever.

And it hasn’t just been the unity of Mandalore that’s benefited from the shift. The expansion has given Mandalore the chance to dominate the trade markets in the worlds they’ve taken when the loss of slavery had all but collapsed them, making themselves the stabilizing force in a hundred new economies. Mandalore has become indefinitely _richer_ for it, and the Clans have reaped the rewards of that just as much as the rest of the Mandalorian Parliament.

By all accounts, Mandalore is prospering as it never has before.

But now his uncle works for peace and with it there are many who worry that the expansion in the Outer Rim will halt, a fear that makes Kyr’tsad all too appealing. Bly can understand their fear; slavery is far from vanquished and without the war their army will splinter as verde return home, to their own planets. Getting them to return to the war, should it start again, will prove difficult. Particularly for the non-Mando’ade troops that make up the large bulk of the army. Many of their cultures don’t have the same focus on training and loyalty to their ruler that the Mando’ade have, and the divide has been difficult time and again, and no more so than when trying to recruit verde to the Army of Mandalorian Systems.

But Bly _wants_ the war to end. He doesn’t want the army to have to be re-formed, he doesn’t want the peace to falter. In his fourteen years in the army, he’s seen more than his share of destruction and death, and anyone who advocates for more is either naïve or a fool. Their people – _all_ of the Systems beholden to the Mandalorian Parliament – deserve the chance to live free from fear, for the chance to rebuild and make a recovery. Almost half of the population of Mandalore herself has to live in _domes_ for their own protection, for Manda’s sake.

But a Mandalorian will always be a Mandalorian. Bly’s people are stubborn and sometimes blind. One war isn’t enough for some; there are people, Vizsla among them, that will always be spoiling for a fight, even if their opponent is another Mandalorian. Sometimes, Bly wonders how his people haven’t already destroyed themselves.

Sometimes, he thinks it’s only the pretence of civility that’s got them this far into his buir’s second rein.

Lunch is brought on a tray by a servant and he eats alone, before following around the Countess’ assistant and filling a status report for the sake of the cover he already suspects is blown. Deliberately, he takes his time, counting unnecessary supplies and wandering around the fighter hanger, watching the ships being repaired and repainted with haste. On many of them, the paint is still drying, and he’s warned not to touch the hulls by hovering pilots. Bly respects their requests, making conversation instead about their extensive service in the war and, in many cases, their plans for retirement in the new peace.

By the time he returns to his rooms, he’s exhausted in a way even campaigns rarely make him and he wants nothing more than to bury himself between the layers of blankets Clan Wren use to ward off the cold of their mountainous home. That is, of course, when a servant appears at his door to inform him that the Countess is expecting him for lastmeal.

It occurs to him, once they’re all seated at the long dining table, that any non-Mando’ade would looks at the sight of them in full armour for dinner and assume that they expect a fight. The gold of Bly’s armour isn’t so different from the colour of the Wren’s, and if it weren’t for the fact that he and his vode favour the heavier, full armour where the Wrens wear sparser, lighter plates then he could almost be mistaken for one of them. By an outsider, not a Mando’ade. Few Mando’ade would assume they’re allies, let alone _aliit_.

“Tell me, Commander, what’s the news from the capital?” the Countess asks.

Bly gets the impression he should tread carefully. Vizsla’s defiance won’t have remained secret for long, not with the number of eyes and ears in the palace, and Clan Wren will have been among the first outside of Keldabe to know of it. But if he mentions it, then it will seem like an accusation and he wants to avoid confrontation at all costs. “The Jetii left a few days ago with Marshal Commander Fett. The peace holds and the Outer Sieges remain quiet.”

“I would have expected you to step into his place quickly, Commander. What brings you out here?”

Bly tries not to grimace. It’s hardly escaped his notice – or anyone else’s for that matter – that he shares the same rank and name as Cody, and they look unnervingly alike, even for cousins. At twenty-seven Bly is a standard year older, but still gets mistaken for Cody, even with his buzzed hair and gold facial tattoos. To say it’s tiresome is an exaggeration; there will always be something funny about the way people panic when they realise they might have given sensitive information to the _wrong_ Marshal Commander Fett. But the Countess’ implication that he should immediately step to take Cody’s place rankles almost as much as her inquiry sets him on edge.

His vod isn’t _dead_.

“This is important work. The Mand’alor wants the Clans to know they’ve not been forgotten and that their opinions are valued, no matter how long it’s been since they visited the capital.” It’s almost the truth, though the stress on why has been removed. If he hides his own agenda behind a subtle jab, everyone is less suspicious of his motives for it.

The Countess’ daughter looks at him with sudden interest. She’s still fairly young – a teenager barely over the age of majority, but old enough to fight for her clan if called upon – with brilliant blue hair and armour bursting with abstract art, still in the muted colours of Clan Wren. “What does he want our opinion on?”

Mentally, Bly kicks himself. Outwardly, he shrugs. “The Jetii, the peace. All of it.”

“I should have thought that was clear,” the Countess replies stiffly, giving her daughter a pointed look. “We stand with our Mand’alor.”

Bly doesn’t ask _which_ Mand’alor.

It quiets any more questions with brutal efficiency because to raise more would be to accuse someone of treachery. And the atmosphere is far too fragile for _that_. “Of course,” is all Bly says.

It’s much later, in the darkness of the room he’s been given, that he allows himself to think on what was said. Everything about Krownest reeks of underlying tension, and Bly gets the impression he’s only skating across the surface of what’s really going on. His presence here is a nuisance, that much is clear, but whether that’s because he’s an outsider, or there’s a more _political_ motivation, has yet to be seen.

The careful way they seem to be tiptoeing around him makes him think it’s the latter. No Mando’ade is so wary of their own people unless they don’t consider themselves to be of the same people. And that has him worried. This is the third clan he’s visited on his census, and the second to not receive him warmly. The trend is looking like it will extend to the other outlying planets in the Mandalore sector, the ones who either come under Clan Viszla or have allied with them historically.

He’s brought out of his musings by a knock on the door. It’s late enough to be considered the middle of the night and he’s stripped off his armour to change into a loose shirt and trousers to sleep in. It doesn’t stop him from picking up his blaster as he opens the door.

Bly doesn’t know if he should be suspicious or concerned when he finds Sabine Wren standing on the other side, a heavy cloak obscuring most of her face.

“What-” he begins to asks, but she waves a hand and gestures for him to follow, stalking back along the corridor with single-minded determinedness.

He’s both far too curious and – as Fox often reminds him – incurably stupid, with little sense of self preservation, so there’s very little debate about whether he _should_ follow her. She keeps her head bent to ensure the hood keeps her face obscured, and anytime their corridor is joined by another, she peers around it cautiously before they carry on. The cold duracrete that the entire stronghold is built with sets a grim tone in the darkness for their late-night sneaking and Bly _hopes_ she has an explanation planned should they come across another member of her clan. He certainly doesn’t.

It’s not obvious where they’re going until they reach an external wall, and she opens a door to step into the freezing swill of snow beyond. Bly follows because he’s come this far, but he’s bare foot and in his _nightclothes_. Almost instantly he begins to violently shiver and the searing cold burns at his exposed skin. Absently, he notes the snow is crunchy beneath his feet.

“What is this about?” he demands, arms hugged close to his chest, his blaster tucked beneath them. Around them the wind whips noisily, promising a coming storm.

Still Sabine looks around before she pulls her hood back slightly. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but we can’t risk anyone overhearing us. Everything is being monitored.”

That’s… good to know. “Even my comms?”

“Especially your comms.”

It’s a good thing he hasn’t had time to call anyone then. “Wait, is my ship compromised?”

Sabine shakes her head. “Buir only cares about what happens until you’ve gone. Once you leave, you’re not her problem anymore.”

A shiver works its way up his spine, and he grits his teeth as best as he can. The burn isn’t so bad. It’s almost so cold it’s _warm_. “And how exactly am I her problem?”

Sabine shakes her head and looks torn, a frown crossing her face. “I can’t tell you that.”

Bly has the urge to shake some sense into her. “Then why did you bring me out here. Do you _want_ me to get hypothermia?”

“I won’t betray my clan, but neither can I betray my Mand’alor. I can’t tell you anything, but I can tell you _something_ is happening.” She looks at him, pleading with him to understand.

Bly can’t honestly say he _does_. His clan – his aliit – are staunchly loyal to the Mand’alor. He’s never had to pick between the two, and he’s never had to think about which is more important to him. In the brief period of time when the Republic put the Kryze pretender on the throne, he’d been an infant. His mother had remained true to her belief in her vod to the point their family had to go into hiding until his uncle returned to reclaim his throne. The choice has never been thrust upon him.

“Is there anything you can give me to go on?”

Sabine shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

She leaves him alone in the cold, frustrated and confused, with only a vague sense of how to get back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vod – brother/sister  
> Verd(e) – soldier(s)   
> Kyr’tsad – Death Watch  
> Aliit – family  
> Buir – mother/father


	11. Chapter 11

Not for the first time, Jango finds himself turning to speak to Cody only to have to remind himself that his son isn’t there because Jango sent him away. It’s irrational really; Cody isn’t around most of the time anyway. He’s spent the past few years at the front, with sparce weeks in between at home. Jango should be _used_ to his absence. His son is far too competent to keep sequestered in Keldabe and Jango isn’t selfish enough to deprive his forces of Cody’s presence. Or any of his _ade_ , for that matter. 

Boba remains the exception to that rule because Jango is certainly practiced enough at admitting his mistakes; he sent Cody and Rex to war out of necessity, but both of them were _too_ _young_ and he knows it hurt them more than they let on. His nephews too. All of them saw the galaxy bleed before they ever saw it bloom, just like he did. The scars of that may not be visible, but they’re there all the same. He won’t do that to Boba, not when he doesn’t have to now there’s peace.

Alone in his office, Jango sinks in his chair and allows his head to rest against the back as he stretches his neck. It’s been barely a week since the Jetii left, and yet it seems as if it’s been one crisis after another, all demanding his attention to maintain public – and sometimes his council’s – ignorance. None of them can be trusted completely, he learnt that the hard way at Galidraan. 

All of them have their own agendas, from Vizsla and his crusade of mindless bloodshed to Kryze and her one-track mission to erase her sister’s legacy. He lets them sit on his council to maintain clan unity and for that reason he can’t have anyone besides himself from the Fett clan, least he be accused of favouritism. It means that his sons have no seat, not that he’s sure they _want_ one. He imagines the look of horror on Cody’s face would mirror his own if he suggested it.

If Jango had his own way, he wouldn’t have to sit on it either, but he’s found being Mand’alor often means he has no choice when it comes to his own autonomy. Regardless, the Council is a painful necessity. They may not have the last word on any matter, but they do hold public sway and if he chooses not to listen and loses their support, then his grip on the title of Mand’alor will weaken. No king can have absolute power.

It’s times like this when he misses Myles the most. When he misses Arla. When he misses his _riduur_. Jango would trade his sons for nothing, but there are certain things he can’t say to them because there are things they could never understand. That he _hopes_ they will never be forced to confront. He’s among the last of those who fought at Galidraan now and wise enough to know that’s as much a blessing as it is a curse. There’s no-one left he feels comfortable enough to trade bitter stories with after too many drinks, or to recite the litany of names for those lost that day. He isn’t about to subject his ade to that. The Manda know they have enough of their own suffering without trying to bare his too.

It’s just him and his memories, with none of his _vode_ left to have his back when he needs it most. 

And the only person he can blame for this is himself. His choices are the reason all of them are dead.

Jango sighs and drags a hand over his face. There’s no time to dwell on things he can’t change, not when there’s plenty of things in the present that require his attention. Too many things. He hadn’t been naïve enough to think that work would lessen with the halt in the war, but he hadn’t expected it to _increase_. All the things pushed aside by the urgency of the war are suddenly demanding to be heard and it’s Jango’s duty to listen to them.

But he also has his own problems to deal with. Vizsla’s disappeared the day after his release may have saved Jango the dilemma of whether or not to keep him on his council, but it’s been an administration nightmare and a blow to the integrity of his household. Reports haven’t been able to confirm Vizsla’s return to his family stronghold on Concordia – they haven’t really been able to confirm _anything_ – and it has everyone on edge for that, in addition to the precarious start to the treaty.

Besides Vizsla vanishing act and the usual flare of tensions ignited by Mando’ade who simply don’t like him, nothing _seems_ amiss. But Jango can feel a calm that promises a coming storm in his bones and he isn’t about to plunge Mandalore into a different war because he ignored his intuition.

Tervo, his head of intelligence, can feel it too. She’s been slipping in and out of his office accompanied by a thunderous expression since that evening, just as frustrated as he is by the lack of news. He knows she’s vying to get back into the field – back to the _hunt_ – staying only out of her loyalty to him. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate her worry for his wellbeing, but he mourns the days when it didn’t matter, before trillions of beings depended on him and he was just another verde, looking outwards like everyone else. 

Now the only way he can have their back is from behind a paper shield.

Skirata, his head of security, is the worst among them for coddling Jango. He’d nearly had an aneurism when Vizsla disappeared, doubling the guard for every Fett in the palace and advocating ceaselessly for Bly’s early return, certain that Vizsla intends to move against Jango by going through his family. Jango doesn’t even think he’s _wrong_ , but neither can he afford to simply drop all of his duties because of a single threat against his life. That’s what he agreed to when he was declared Mand’alor and that’s what the Darksaber reminds him when it hangs heavy on his hip; he serves something bigger than himself. He serves _Mandalore_ and he can’t weigh his life against that.

Vizsla’s disappearance can _only_ be taken as a threat against Jango; one doesn’t slight the Mand’alore lightly or without intention. But that’s not what Jango cares about. Vizsla has always been a threat, since the day Jango took up the Darksaber, and the only reason Jango had him on his council was to keep him close, where he could be under watch. He’s been watching the man he suspects _so_ _strongly_ was behind Kyr’tsad, keeping him close and hoping he’d slip, waiting for a chance to move in for the kill.

He never had.

All Jango has got from his patient waiting for Vizsla to misstep has been one hell of a headache and a jeopardised peace. Not to mention the man has been lurking around his family for the past two decades and he doesn’t have a whole lot of that left. He’s supposed to protect them, that’s what he promised Arla before he sent her away. That he’d look after her sons as his own. And he kept them around _Vizsla_.

Jango’s comm bleeps for an encrypted incoming call, dragging him out of his dark musings. 

“Bly.”

“Uncle.” Bly’s image is grainy and flickers with the distance.

“Is there a reason for the encryption?”

“I had a tip off that it might not be safe for an open call. I had to get off Krownest before I risked anything, though I’m not entirely sure they haven’t done something to my ship.”

Jango stands abruptly, the comm in his palm, turning to face the window of his office. Below the whole of Keldabe is lit up against the darkness of the night, bustling with an undying energy despite the time. “There’s been a development?”

Bly grimaces. “You were right, Vizsla’s allies are planning something, I’m sure of it. I don’t have any solid _evidence_ , nothing that would stand up in Parliament or the courts, but something is happening.”

It’s not _good_ news, but there’s something satisfying about being right. Even when dread fills his heart. If Vizsla is involved then there _will_ be war. Jango’s been trying so hard to wrench them out of one war, he’s steered them straight into another. “What can we expect?”

“I told you about Velmeth Port?”

Jango nods. The last time Bly checked in with him was just before he went to visit the Saxons. The True Mandalorian Clan Awaud, led by his old ally Nam Beroya, had settled on Velmeth Port after Galidraan when the power struggled between Kyr’tsad and the New Mandalorians waged. Jango can’t say he begrudges Nam’s desire to stay out of politics, but there are many times in the years since they fought together where he could have used him as an ally.

“Yeah, well Clan Saxon and Clan Wren didn’t give me half the welcome they did.”

He frowns. “They turned you away?”

“They clearly wanted to. I was too much in their way, asking too many questions. But it seems they’re adhering to civility for now, if only to bide their time.” Bly pauses, clearly weighing up his next words. “Ba’vodu, both of them had electro magnetic pulse grenades in their armouries.”

Jango takes a moment to process that. Mandalorians don’t typically fight with pulse grenades because they have a tendency to interfere with HUD readings. They’re used by Republic forces for that exact reason. That the clans are in possession of them could be entirely innocent, nothing more than spoils of war reaped from a battlefield – and will be dismissed as such if presented as evidence – but there’s no reason for either of those clans to _want_ to use them. And Jango finds it suspicious they both have them; it reeks of co-ordinated effort.

“That’s not all. When I was on Krownest, they stalled my visit to the ship hangers with food. By the time I arrived, the ships had been repainted, but it’s hard to cover blue with gold and be thorough when in a rush. It wasn’t just any blue.” The way the dread seems to shift into something heavy in his gut lets Jango know exactly what kind of blue it was. “It was _Kyr’tsad_ blue.”

Jango closes his eyes.

He wills it all away. But Galidraan will _never_ go away. He will wear its shame and anger and pain for the rest of his life, as he _should_. The dead must be remembered, their names recited, and if rage is the only motivator Jango can summon to ensure he never forgets the cost of his failure then so be it. But he doesn’t need the ghosts he buried in the past to return as a reminder of what happened.

“Vizsla is making his own army?”

“Many of the pilots and fighters I spoke to have plans for a retirement from the standing army in the face of the new peace. _Too_ _many_ of them, and it would certainly give them the cover to fight for something else.”

The numbers Vizsla could summon won’t be any match for what remains of Mandalore’s – of _Jango’s_ – army, and the Parliament of Mandalorian Systems will hardly stand for Vizsla as their Mand’alor. Not now, at least. Vizsla isn’t an immediate threat, but he has the intention to become one and Kyr’tsad aren’t honourable opponents, that’s why they broke away from the True Mandalorians and refused to follow Jaster’s Supercommando Codex in the first place. They’ll chip away at Jango’s rule and his people’s confidence in him, until they look for another leader to save them.

Until they look to Vizsla.

And Jango’s given the aruetii an insight into how he rules by putting Vizsla in the heart of his court and its dealings. The bastard has been planning this, of that Jango is sure. His disappearance has been too smooth, too untraceable, not to have been organised well in advance. He knew _exactly_ what he was doing that night at dinner.

“We have our answer then,” he says bitterly. “Vizsla moves against us, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

They can’t arrest him, not without knowing where he is, and they can’t move against the clans that support him without evidence. Oh, and doesn’t that _hurt_. It feels like a betrayal of everyone he lost to Kyr’tsad that fateful day on Galidraan if he sits and does _nothing_.

Bly seems unwilling to break the silence Jango stews in. It takes him a few moments, but he reels back in the despair and anger long enough to take pity on his nephew. “Come back to Keldabe.”

“You don’t want me to pay Clan Vizsla a visit too?”

Jango thinks of his promise to Arla before he sent her into the viper’s nest. “No. I’m not risking your life for confirmation of what we already know.”

Skirata, at least, can rest easy.

“Very well,” Bly says, though he doesn’t look happy about it. Jango’s about to cut the comm to dwell in his own thoughts when Bly hesitates. “There was something else.”

“Yes?”

“The Countess’ daughter went out of her way to give me a warning.”

“About what?”

“She couldn’t say.”

Despite himself, Jango laughs hollowly. “Some warning that was.”

Bly’s face twists unhappily. “Just… bare that in mind when you deal your retribution.”

Jango looks up sharply to meet his nephew’s eye, but Bly stares back just as unblinking. It might be the lightyears between them giving him the audacity to imply Jango’s anger is quite so dangerous, or it might be because Bly is a man in his own right and Jango is too stuck in the past to see anyone but the boy who’d just been told he was an orphan. The boy who had held his younger brothers even as he cried himself to sleep.

“The Count was missing during my visit,” Bly says and cuts the call.

Jango’s left wondering what the hell _that’s_ supposed to mean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And exams are officially over! 
> 
> Ade – children   
> Ba’vodu – uncle  
> Kyr’tsad – Death Watch  
> Aruetii – traitor


	12. Chapter 12

She senses them coming from a mile off, but it’s amusing to see how far they can get before they give themselves away. It’s practically a rite of passage for the younglings at the Temple to see how far they can get through the vents before they’re discovered by an irate crèche master or the Temple Guard, and its oddly comforting to know that some things don’t change, no matter how far across the galaxy she goes. Younglings will always find a way to be in a place they shouldn’t, just because they _can_ , and as far as Ahsoka is concerned that’s the natural order of things.

She certainly isn’t going to worry about the intrusion.

There’s an ever so slight creak from above the door, but she continues working through her kata in the padded room, unable to stop the small smile that pulls at her lips at the muffled curse. At the Temple, the younglings have to learn to rein in their Force presence just as much as their physical presence to avoid detection. Sometimes she thinks the masters let them crawl through the vents just to allow them to experiment, to teach a lesson without having to raise a finger or equivalent appendage. 

Here, the younglings have to worry about different problems – the noise they make, slicing the security she’s seen on the vent hatches, upsetting the cameras and bugs placed there by others who have been there before them – it’s a different challenge, but requires just as much skill and Ahsoka is a little impressed that they have managed to reach her apartment without alerting the Guard.

The vents circle the edges of the rooms so there’s only so close her visitor can get. She knows because she’s been up there herself to check for bugs. They must be able to see her through the grate above the door, and Ahsoka decides to make their effort worth the while. She rolls her shoulders, sinking into the next stance of her preferred Shien variant of Form V. Many at the Temple would consider it foolish for her to allow a Mandalorian to witness her train, but she can’t sense any malice from the vents, only childish curiosity and apprehensive mistrust. She _is_ here to foster peace and make the Jedi seem less like the monsters the Mandalorians think they are. And she can’t think of a better way to do that than by dissipating the mystery shrouding her people that allows fear of the unknown to breed.

That doesn’t mean she can’t have _fun_ with it though. This time, instead of focusing on her breathing, she unclips her sabers from her belt and ignites them. 

There’s a little gasp from above and the curiosity intensifies.

She almost makes it to the end of the kata when there’s a _clank_ and the grate gives way in a cloud of plaster and warped durasteel. The youngling – though, he’s perhaps a bit old to be described as such – shrieks in surprise. Ahsoka throws her hands out without thinking, catching the kid with the Force as he falls and slowly lowers him to the ground. A mop of curly dark hair hides the boy’s face as he coughs, pushing himself to his feet as if falling through the ceiling meant nothing.

“You knew I was there, didn’t you?” he accuses. Despite his perfect grammar, his accent is so heavily Mandalorian that it takes her a moment to process the distorted Basic. The others that speak to her don’t have accents that are so thickly veiled, and she wonders if this is his first chance to use it with a native speaker.

“Maybe,” she admits, disengaging her sabers.

He scowls at her, eyes full of mistrust. “You’re the Jetii everyone is talking about.”

“You seem to know who I am, but I don’t know who you are?”

He’s young, but not _that_ young. Perhaps the age of a new padawan; twelve or thirteen at most. Around the age a Mandalorian child begins to take on adult responsibilities, ones that shouldn’t leave time for adventures in ventilation shafts.

“Buir said I shouldn’t go near you,” the boy says instead.

“So why are you here?”

“I can’t do _anything_. They’re all so desperate to protect me and keep me safe, even when they get to go and fight.” He looks almost disgruntled by the fact. “So, I do it anyway.”

Ahsoka would be hypocritical to fault that logic. She’s pretty sure she’s prematurely aged her own master _and_ Master Obi-Wan with her _liberal_ interpretation of rank and rules, though she’ll die on the hill that Skyguy is the reason he’s going grey.

“Don’t you think your buir maybe had a point?” She hardly intends to threaten him, but neither does she want an angry parent at her door.

“I wanted to see if what people are saying is true.”

“And what are the people saying?”

She thinks she could make an educated guess, but she’s also _curious_.

The kid looks at her for a moment, cocking his head slightly to the side. The clothes he wears are simple but she can see the quality of them in the stitching of his shirt cuffs. She really doesn’t want an angry courtier at her door.

“You don’t have fangs,” he decides. “Buir said you had fangs.”

“Oh, really?” she says, flashing him a smile that’s all teeth. “You haven’t met many togruta then?”

Alarm flashes across his face, but he doesn’t step back. Instead, he looks almost sullen. “Nobody lets me out of the palace to get the chance.”

“Shili is part of the Republic. I can’t imagine there’s many of us this far away from the Core.”

Honestly, Ahsoka is a little surprised by the diversity that _is_ here in Keldabe. At home, the holobroadcasts had only ever shown the human Mandalorians, oppressing the other sentients of the worlds they’d conquered. There had been little variation in the humans they’d shown too; they’d either had the same dark skin as the Fett family, or the pale skin and acid-blond hair of the New Mandalorians. But then, the last time the Republic had an insight into the goings on of Mandalore herself, it had been during Kryze’s brief reign, limited to the New Mandalorians and their capital of Sundari.

Things have certainly changed since then.

If someone had seen Myta, the emerald skinned twi’lek who guards her door sometimes, and the Mandalorian helmet she wears adapted for her lekku, they’d be just as confused as Ahsoka. Ryloth suffers under the Mandalorians, and yet she _serves_ them and follows their code. 

Myta _is_ Mandalorian.

Ahsoka thinks of the way Captain Fett was so adamant that Ryloth had been saved from the Republic. She’d felt his conviction in the Force, and it makes her question how much he knows of the rebels led by Syndulla or Orn Free Taa’s government in exile on Coruscant. As the son of the Mand’alor, he _must_ know of them and their displeasure with Ryloth’s occupation. To be blind to the freedom movement rising up on worlds across the Mandalorian Empire would make him a fool, and her master couldn’t be bested by a fool. 

Which can _only_ mean he’s complicit, that he’s guilty of the same oppression as the rest of his family. And Ahsoka doesn’t know why that makes her feel uneasy. She doesn’t _like_ him. He’s cold with her, and nothing but hostile. Since their walk he’s spoken to her only when it’s absolutely necessary, and never attempted anything personal. They’re not friends.

And yet, she can’t shake the _but_ in the back of her mind. Captain Fett may be many things, but he doesn’t seem cruel. She can’t equate what she knows of the situation on Ryloth to his genuine confusion when she’d said Mandalore shouldn’t have invaded Ryloth. He’d seemed to think the invasion had been good for Ryloth, that it had been the right thing. As if it were _helping_ people.

Ahsoka can’t understand how he thinks that is the case. Nobody besides the most ruthless, the most Mandalorian, have a voice on Ryloth now. Slavery may no-longer exist by royal decree, but there are other types of servitude and they certainly are still alive and well. There’s no freedom of choice left to the people of Ryloth, and if they rebel against the Mandalorian rule they’re charged with treason and condemned to the spice mines. 

That’s why the Republic continued to fight.

Ahsoka is hardly blind to the failings of the Republic – anyone with eyes can see its faults – but at least there had been a _choice_ when it came to membership, at least there had been _democracy_. 

Or that’s why the Senate said, though Ahsoka is mature enough to admit there may have been other factors in play. Now that both sides try for peace, she supposes it doesn’t matter at all. Ryloth, and hundreds of other planets lost to the Mandalorian Empire, have been forfeited. Anakin says the peace is a betrayal of their trust in the Republic, that their inaction is cowardice unfitting of Jedi. Master Obi-Wan says Jedi must always work for peace, that there’s always other ways to solve a problem than violence. They haven’t given up on the people of Ryloth, but they can’t free them with force – they’ve already _tried_ that – and so they must come up with something better.

Ahsoka thinks something in between, though she’s not entirely sure what yet, just that the galaxy contains more grey than she ever thought possible. Nothing, it seems, is ever simple.

Like the kid before her. He doesn’t fear her the way the rest of his people do, he hasn’t learned to yet and it’s more painfully obvious than ever that the hatred between them isn’t inherent, but rather taught. Taught because of a history between them that is too insurmountable to ever change.

The kid looks thoughtful. “My brother has togruta in his legion.”

“Oh?” Ahsoka hears herself saying. As with all species in the galaxy, she supposes her people have spread their colonies to many planets, and that Shili may be a part of their heritage, but it isn’t their only culture anymore. Just like she has become a Jedi, some of her people must have strayed close enough to the Outer Rim to cross the line into Mandalorian Space. And if they were raised in Mandalorian Space, with Mandalorian values, it shouldn’t be surprising they also fill the ranks of the Mandalorian Empire.

The kid perks up. “Yeah. Sometimes his legion parade in the palace barracks. You can’t see anyone’s face under their buy’ce, but you have _horns_.”

Ahsoka grimaces at the implication and mumbles, “montrals.”

“If it’s true you have fangs,” the kid continues, unconcerned, “then is it also true that you control people with your mind?”

Jedi mind tricks are often vastly embellished by the holonet; romanticised by the Republic and villainised by the Mandalorian Empire. Admitting that some individuals are susceptible to her command of the Force while she’s isolated in the heart of Mandalore, especially to some rich kid, seems _dangerous_. Best leave some things as rumours, she thinks, suddenly wishing he was as afraid of her as the rest of his people. Then maybe he wouldn’t ask so many questions.

“It’s my turn to ask a question,” she reasons, instead of answering. “How did you get past the Guard?”

She can’t believe that the security here is sloppy enough that the vents aren’t monitored. Commander Fett of the Mandalorian Guard has a reputation even on Coruscant for his efficiency.

“I’ve got the access codes,” he says, as if that were obvious. “The one’s Fox thinks are secret.”

Ahsoka suddenly has a very bad feeling. “Who did you say your brother was?”

The front door opening and heavy footsteps burst into the apartment.

“I didn’t-”

“ _Boba_ ,” Captain Fett growls, appearing in the doorway and grabbing the kid by the arm. He shoves the kid behind himself so that he’s between Boba and Ahsoka. “What are you doing here? She’s _dangerous_.”

“I was just saying hello,” Boba – and it can only be Boba _Fett_ , the Mand’alor’s youngest – scowls.

The Captain ignores him, gesturing at Ahsoka with one of his drawn blasters. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near him.”

“I didn’t-” she begins.

“She caught me with her Jetii magic!” the youngest Fett says gleefully and – unfortunately for Ahsoka – rather unhelpfully.

The Captain’s expression turns murderous and Ahsoka would almost rather he were wearing his helmet. “You did what?” he ask, dangerously quiet.

Ahsoka can feel the white-hot fury leaking from his presence. “He was falling-”

The Captain waves away her excuse with one of his blasters. “If you go near him again, I won’t hesitate to shoot you. Guest or not, you respect our boundaries.”

“I wouldn’t-” she tries.

“Do you understand?”

Ahsoka bites her lip. “I do,” she relents. “I’m sorry-”

“Save it,” he says, backing out of the room with the kid.

The door shuts behind them.

Ahsoka stands there for a moment until it registers that she’s still holding her lightsabers, and then she clips them to her belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exams have (finally) finished!


	13. Chapter 13

Very few people would call Cody a coward. In fact, it’s only _Cody_ who considers himself to be one right now. But what he’s doing at this moment in time is definitely hiding. Hiding from his enemies no less, and if that isn’t the action of a coward, then he doesn’t know what is. Yet, there’s only so much ill-hidden malice he can take from _younglings_ before it makes him want to shy away from their judgement. 

Kenobi is in a Council meeting – his fifth in as many days, and if Cody didn’t know better, he’d say the General was avoiding him – so there’s no-one to call him out for not adhering to the schedule he’s been given. Lessons with padawans half his age isn’t how Cody thought this treaty was going to be enacted and he can’t help but be a little shamed. 

By virtue of an entirely different upbringing, he has no idea what’s going on even in the most basic of the classes the Jetii have put him in, which leaves him lost at best and utterly humiliated at worst. Only a third of the classes the Jetii offer to beginners don’t revolve around their mystic forces, and even then they haven’t put him in anything remotely related to combat. It leaves him stuck in dry lessons he has no understanding of, and he knows for a fact that the same younglings in his _Basics of Intergalactic Diplomacy_ have a saber class together immediately after and he’s not allowed to join in because Manda forbid he’s given a weapon. He knows because he walks past them on the way to his _History of the Republic_ class. In which they’re currently studying a horribly bias and widely inaccurate version of the Sith Wars.

Cody attended the Sundari Academy, he’s be taught politics by politicians, strategy by grand admirals, combat by the Mand’alor. He’s won battles, commanded verde against impossible odds and defeated Jetii with textbook executions of classic military strategy. He speaks four languages, and is a good enough marksman to hit a moving target from four hundred paces. His education isn’t lacking, and he isn’t incapable. He can’t be, not when he’s the Mand’alor’s heir. But none of that seems to matter here.

Here, he can’t do _anything_.

They won’t even let him in the salles to train. The tension builds in his muscles instead, making them ache from the stiffness. There isn’t enough room in Kenobi’s quarters to manage so much as a kata, and if Cody didn’t have to face the stares of a thousand Jetii, he might resort to running through the fortress to burn off the unwanted energy.

He never agreed to the treaty because he though it would be easy, but neither did he think that inaction would be so hard. He misses his verde and his flagship, misses the inevitable proximity claxon that would wake him up in the middle of the night, misses _Rex_ because they’ve always been the closest of the Fetts. Kriff, he’s concerned that he wishes he were back at the front just so he could burn off the cloying inaction he can’t shake.

He misses his home and it’s only fuelling the hatred he feels for his enemy. He’s on edge constantly, and it feels as if he’s one small inconvenience away from doing something he’ll regret because he _doesn’t_ _have_ _an_ _outlet_. Cody prides himself on his control, on his reserve. Among the Mando’ade he’s forged himself the reputation of remaining calm in any situation, especially ones where others lose their head. So why is it so hard here, in a building saturated with the feeling of serenity?

The hair on the back of Cody’s neck stands on end.

The sound of Kenobi’s door opens, and for a moment Cody is sure the General has returned early from his Council meeting. But the footsteps are too heavy, too aggressive for the Negotiator. They sound like they’re looking for a _fight_. Cody grabs his blaster from the end of the bed, tucking it into meat of his shoulder, ready to fire. He’s not in his armour because he hadn’t thought he’d be leaving the quarters today. Clearly, he won’t be making that mistake again.

He steps through the door and sees a tall humanoid figure with shaggy brown hair and a long brown robe, glancing furiously around the living room. 

“Can I help you?” Cody asks. His Basic is perfectly fluent, but it’s still so strange to him that he can’t slip into Mando’a as a default.

“ _You_ ,” the Jetii says accusingly, turning around so that Cody can see it’s _Skywalker_. 

_Firefek_.

The last time the two of them met Cody had bombed Skywalker’s position to cinders and stormed his camp. It had ended in a sort of duel between the two of them, fighting in between burning debris and retreating Republic soldiers. Cody finds some satisfaction when he sees that his gauntleted punch to Skywalker’s brow has scarred.

“Me,” Cody agrees carefully. Skywalker has an awful lot of backup and he has none.

For a moment it looks as if Skywalker might ignite his saber and Cody _really_ rues the fact he’s not wearing his beskar’gam as his trigger finger twitches. The Jetii’s balls his fists and grits his teeth, making a conscious effort not to be the first to move. Which means Cody can’t either.

“Can I help you?” Cody repeats when Skywalker says nothing.

“I was looking for Obi-Wan,” he says, his jaw clenched.

It takes Cody a moment to realize he means General Kenobi because while he might not _like_ the man, he has enough respect of his record to use his title. “He’s in a Council meeting.”

Skywalker scowls. “Aren’t you supposed to be with him as his dutiful new padawan?”

“I am nobody’s cadet,” Cody says with a venom that surprises even himself. The rolling discomfort in his gut has nothing to do with the fact he doesn’t believe his words.

“Could have fooled me,” Skywalker sneers. “From what I’ve heard, you can’t even programme a hyperdrive.”

Cody’s ears burn and he wishes he were wearing his helmet. “And yet, I’ve managed to defeat _you_.”

 _That_ makes him bristle. “You had the greater numbers and firepower.”

“It’s called _strategy_. Not all of us can rely on the mystic forces of the galaxy. Some of us rely on our skill alone.”

“Because there’s so much skill involved in scorching a klick of land and orbital bombardment.”

“You can’t be too careful if there’s a Jetii involved,” he says darkly.

Cody doesn’t realise either of them have moved until they’re less than the distance of Skywalker’s lightsaber apart. His blaster is pointed just to the left of Skywalker’s torso.

“If anything happens to my padawan, know that there isn’t anywhere you’ll be safe from me.”

Cody doesn’t need the Force to know Skywalker means every word.

“Anakin!” Both of them jerk backwards as Kenobi storms into the room, fury etched onto his face. “What are either of you doing here?”

“I live here,” Cody points out, and Kenobi shoots him a sour look for avoiding the question.

“I was looking for you.” Skywalker jabs his finger at Kenobi. 

They hold each other’s gaze before Kenobi sighs and gestures for Skywalker to follow him into the privacy of his room, leaving Cody alone with too much aggression and no outlet for it. Logically, he knows that wherever Kenobi is, Skywalker is never far behind. Running into him had been inevitable, and it should be a surprise it took this long.

Cody sighs and sinks onto the couch, allowing his head to slump against the back, hand still on his blaster on the cushion next to him. He doesn’t understand why everything is so kriffing _difficult_. Anyone would think he’d broken the resol’nare and displeased the Manda. He’s always tried to do his best, by the people and his Mand’alor. Cody tries to push away the thought he’s being punished for being unworthy.

Eventually, Skywalker reappears and heads straight for the door without so much as looking at Cody. Kenobi emerges at a more leisurely pace, and looks at him wearily. It’s clear he has _no idea_ what to do with Cody. Whatever he was expecting Cody to be, this wasn’t it, and Cody gets the impression he’s disappointed the General, which is an entirely bizarre thought.

“Would you like to meditate?”

It seems all he’s done in Kenobi’s presence is meditate since he arrived. Or rather, Kenobi meditates and Cody sits on his own mat, watching Coruscant unfold hundred of feet below, waiting for a convenient time to excuse himself to do anything else. Like lock himself in his room and _not_ panic at just how enclosed he is.

“Honestly?” Cody finds his voice raising in response to Kenobi’s irritatingly calm manner as he stands. “No. I _don’t_ want to meditate.” 

What he wants to do is _fight_ , but there’s no-one here willing to be his sparring partner. He’s not sure that would be a good idea either. There’s far too much history between their people for it to be anything but real when they spar, and he doesn’t want to be the reason the treaty fails.

“What _do_ you want to do, Commander?” Kenobi asks tiredly.

Cody bites back a scoff of frustration and raises his arms in defeat, before turning his back on the Jetii and slipping into Skywalker’s old room.


	14. Chapter 14

Since her arrival on Mandalore the Force has seemed clouded and confused. It carries a sense of uncertainty she’s never felt before, and the feeling grows stronger when she meditates on it.

The Force isn’t sentient; it doesn’t have agendas or a need for power. It simply _is_ , an energy that connects all living things together, and like all energy in the universe it’s dependent on _balance_. For its own survival just as much as everything else’s. Ahsoka tells herself it must be the animosity of a million Mandalorians that she can feel, offsetting that balance and making her reel as the energy that’s usually so comforting tries to wrench itself away from the corruption of the Darkness and back to the Light. 

The Force doesn’t have emotions either, but if it did Ahsoka would describe what she can feel as _dread_. It’s like an undercurrent to the lifeforce of everything else going on around her, always there, always threatening, but not rearing its head. Not yet. As if whatever is going to happen is biding its time.

There’s a calmness to it, one that only makes her think of a coming storm, as if the peace they exist in now will turn into a tidal wave of conflict. Even alone in her room she can sense the tension like it’s a tight band around her chest, demanding her attention. She’s felt warnings in the Force before, but this one is substance-less and obscure, like smoke shifting out of her grasp and taunting the edges on her mind. At first she tries to give it no thought, tells herself it’s her own fear of the Mandalorians manifesting in the Force. She tries to put it out of her mind – _ignores_ it to the best of her ability – and instead focusing on not riling up her minders any more than she can help.

Then she wakes in the night with a moment of sudden, horrific clarity.

Her heart races in her chest and sits up abruptly in the too-soft bed as she finally realises what she’s been thinking since she first felt the apprehension thick in the Force. It threatens something great and terrible, it always has, but now she can feel the burning _intent_ that accompanies it. It’s like the Force is crying out in a desperate warning, and it leaves her in a cold sweat that has her throwing back the covers of her bed and swing her legs over the side, sabers in hand.

 _Something_ is about to happen, she’s sure of it. The undercurrent of dread is still in the Force, still threatening a great finale of suffering and fighting, but the first wave to disturb the calmness of the waters is about to be cast, and it _cannot_ be ignored.

She doesn’t know what the warning is for, but it feels imminent. The Force might not be sentient or think, it might only seek balance, but it has always favoured its children the most. Given them gifts of its own to protect them; forewarning and premonition that are not to be taken lightly.

She gets up and leaves the room, shivering as the cold laughs at the flimsiness of her sleeping clothes, taking the time to pull on her boots. It’s the height of the night, when everything is eerily still and even a misplaced breath sounds out of place. Her stomach turns and her skin pricks. Her heart beats faster in answer to her fear. A Jedi should not know fear, that’s what younglings are taught in Temple, but she’s seen enough of the way the galaxy really works to know that is an impossible ask and she remembers Master Plo’s words. As long as she does not _act_ in fear she won’t lose focus.

The apartment is still and dark, nothing out of the ordinary. Her feet take her to the balcony door and she hesitates only a moment before opening it and stepping out into the frigid night air. Her breath condenses as she exhales, and an unwelcome shiver wracks up her spine. 

Ahsoka rests her hands on the railing, lightsabers still clutched tightly. Keldabe is lit up below, stretching into the distance before giving way to the mountains. The sky is a deep blue, almost dark enough to be true black, and for a moment she’s distracted by how peaceful it is out here.

Then an explosion mars the skyline, a plume of hot orange rising skyward as it tears through the middle of the city. She takes a step back in surprise as another detonates further to the east and another one further than that, like a morbid game of dominoes, timed to perfection. Distantly, she can here the cries for help carried on the wind as the fires climb higher and gain strength. Chaos swirls amidst the ash, and the sudden desperation of thousands of people echoed by the Force drowns out anything else.

Despite the gifted warning, her only response is to _watch_.

Numbness tracks up her spine. Ashoka has led _battles_. She’s been responsible for the deaths caused by _her_ plans and _her_ failures. Guilt is nothing new, nothing she hasn’t felt before. She’s seen the bitter price of her losses and felt the dangerous, heady giddiness of victory. It’s taken time for her to learn that emotions are not something she can choose to cast away, as so many have tried to teach her is the Jedi way, but instead something she must _master_ , lest they tempt her down a path to Darkness.

And yet, for all of the lessons she’s learnt, she can’t help but feel as if hopelessness will drown her, that it will master _her_. Because it doesn’t matter that she’s tried so hard to keep the peace strong on Mandalore, her sacrifices have had no impact. Keldabe is on fire and people still suffer. She knows with certainty that it’s somehow tied to her presence. Her very existence has incited a rage strong enough to trigger an attack on a densely populated city. It doesn’t matter if she wants the peace, not when such dark hatred exists in the galaxy. All her efforts – the _Jedi’s_ efforts – are fruitless. The war will never end.

The next explosion is a surprise.

Any warning in the Force is clouded by the panic and misery saturating Keldabe. It tears through the apartment with sudden, violent heat. The strength of it throws her back against the banister and she hits her head on the ledge hard enough for sparks to burst across her vision. Shards of transparisteel and chunks of duracrete are flung everywhere, hitting her with enough bruising force that the air is knocked from her lungs even as she gasps for breath, fingers clinging stubbornly to her sabers as the world shakes.

Orange and red swirl against the grey of the ruined brick, and it takes her moments too long to register the _thunk_ of armoured boots on stone. She blinks blurrily in confusion and almost hisses as the shadowy figure steps out onto the ruined balcony, into the light cast by the fire. They’re hidden beneath custom Mandalorian armour, neither the red of the Guard or the dark blue of the Captain, and they’re definitely pointing a blaster her way.

“Trust a Jetii to ruin a perfectly good plan. All you had to do was _sleep_.” Their voice is modulated by their helmet, but the hatred seeps through the vox all too well. “No matter, I’ll finish this myself.”

Ahsoka looks a little desperately past them, but she can’t see the door. It’s not hard to imagine that the Mand’alor ordered all available troops down into the city when the first explosion went off. There’s no sense wasting them guarding a Jedi when Mandalorians are in danger. 

She gasps in a ragged breath, her side burning like the fire is _inside_ her chest. “How kind of you,” she chokes, too much of Anakin’s padawan to not get the last word in.

The Mandalorian takes a step closer, and though Ahsoka can’t see their face, she knows that her attacker thinks her pitiful.

“There is nothing kind about this.”

 _No, there’s probably not_ , she thinks absently. And then she pushes as hard as she can with Force.

The Mandalorian is flung backwards, and Ahsoka rolls to the side as she dodges their misplaced shot. Something sharp lances up her side, stealing her breath and Ahsoka _gasps_ , but pushes herself to shaky feet as she turns around. The Mando is on their feet too. Ahsoka braces herself, flexing her fingers on the metal of her sabers.

The Mando moves and Ahsoka ignites them, deflecting their attacks. It’s a whirl of blue on red, and the room suffers under the stray blaster beams until Ahsoka manages to cut through the barrel. The Mando throws the remains aside in disgust and pulls out a vibroblade, lunging at her. They end up back on the floor, pain flaring and making Ahsoka’s vision go dark as she’s crushed under the weight of beskar and flesh. It’s all she can do to push back against the Mando’s blade locked against the hilts of her crossed sabers. There’s a terrible screech of metal on metal, and then-

-the weight is gone, and Ahsoka lurches forwards in compensation. The Captain is there, pulling the Mando back and _punching_ them in the helmet. There’s a crack, though it’s unclear if it’s Fett’s fist or the intruder’s armour. They grapple, and Ahsoka’s world turns. There’s two- _three_ of both of them, a mess of limbs and blasters and knives.

The Captain grunts in pain, and Ahsoka forces herself to _focus_ on the fight before her. Fett doesn’t have a weapon anymore, and while neither of them have blasters, the Mando still has the vibroblade. Ahsoka doesn’t think when she throws her shoto saber.

“Catch!”

The Captain doesn’t, but he manages to roll and grab it before the Mando does. Ahsoka gets back to her feet, staggering forwards. The Captain ignites the blade, and slices through the Mando’s vibroblade when he swings it wildly.

It slices just as easily through his chest.

The Mando slump and the Captain disengages the blade, breathing hard. He allows the body to fall backwards as Ahsoka moves to stand next to him.

“Thanks,” she grimaces, one hand clutching her side. She can feel the slickness of the blood there and decidedly doesn’t look at the damage.

The Captain turns and gives her an undecipherable look from beneath his helmet as he hands her back her saber. He crouches by the body, ghosting his gauntlet over the cylindrical hole between the plates of beskar in the Mando’s chest with morbid curiosity. He pulls his hand back as if burnt when he realises what he’s doing, and reaches up to remove the body’s helmet instead. He stills with recognition.

“Who is it?” Ahsoka asks quietly.

“Slick,” he says. “One of Cody’s men,” he adds at her confused look. “A sergeant.”

“A traitor?”

“It would seem so.” The Captain is _angry_. “This isn’t his usual armour. He planned to be here, and he planned to be discrete.”

“Bombing the city was a distraction,” she realises. An effort to get rid of the Guard and her protection. “Someone wants me dead.”

The Captain turns to looks at her and reaches up to take his helmet off, placing in to one side. Sweat tracks down one side of his face, and his forehead is scrunched in thought. “Someone does,” he agrees, wiping his face tiredly. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

His sincerity is genuine, even if it’s rooted in duty and not kindness. Ahsoka has to concede that she’s not sure she could have finished this fight so quickly without him. Her head _rings_ in protest, and the Captain’s face blurs in and out of focus. Stubbornly, she ignores it.

“I knew I could feel something,” she says without thinking.

Fett looks at her sharply. “You _felt_ this?”

“In the Force,” she says, and then realises her mistake when guarded mistrust swamps his signature. “I still can,” she adds hurriedly. “This isn’t over yet.”

Privately, she thinks it’s a _long_ way from over.

He looks like he’s going to say something not particularly tactful but never gets the chance. Ahsoka’s body protests its abuse, and everything goes black.

She always did like getting the last word in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank the Force for bacta, huh
> 
> (Exam results come out tomorrow and this chapter is my way of coping, I'm so sorry for everything)


	15. Chapter 15

Obi-Wan watches the Commander from the corner of his eye as he meditates on his mat by the window. Fett is sat at the small island between the greeting room and the kitchen that doubles as a table, brows drawn tight in silent frustration as he types on the datapad. It not dissimilar to the way Anakin used to suffer through his assignments in his early months at the Temple, too afraid to ask for help because he feared appearing inadequate. 

There’s something tightly coiled about his Force signature, like all he needs is a small push to spring open. Stress bleeds through the cracks in his defences. For all his outward appearance of indifference and frankly impressive shielding for a null, he can’t hide the brittle edge to his Force signature. Not from someone he’s forced into such tight quarters with.

Obi-Wan is hardly knew to sharing his space with another. Before the treaty, Anakin was in Obi-Wan’s quarters as often as he was in his own. Sometimes it felt like his old padawan had never moved out at all, and despite how often Obi-Wan grumbled about his need for some alone time, he hadn’t really meant it. But he and Anakin had never been on top of each other the way he and the Commander seem to be, grating on each other’s nerves with their proximity. 

An argument seems to be on both of their minds almost constantly, though neither of them seem to want to be the one to initiate it. Obi-Wan because he prides himself on self-control, and the Commander seemingly out of stubbornness to avoid meeting Obi-Wan’s expectations. By all accounts, the Commander is infuriatingly polite, attending the lessons asked of him – at least, after his run in with Anakin – and never raising his voice to anyone, even when his words are sharp.

But there’s only so far you can push a person before they break, voluntarily or not.

Obi-Wan has been given this responsibility because of his experience with Satine, but their relationship had been nothing like this. She’d been only too happy to let him know exactly what she though of him and his _commitment to violence_. She hadn’t skulked silently around his quarters, refusing to ask for anything, but so clearly unhappy. Satine had made her displeasure known, often very loudly, and Obi-Wan had known how to fix it because she’d _told_ him.

The Commander barely even greets him first thing, keeping steadfastly to himself when his royal presence isn’t demanded.

And Obi-Wan had no idea how to help him.

He doesn’t particularly _like_ the Commander; _so_ _many_ of his men are dead because of the rivalry between the two of them, so many worlds under the banner of the Mandalorian Empire because of his skill. But Obi-Wan is self-aware enough of his feelings to be able to put them aside in the name of duty. The peace rests on their ability to remain civil around each other, and as Obi-Wan continually reminds himself, if the peace holds then no more worlds will fall to beskar and fire.

That’s what he tells himself, as he watches the Commander, trying to reconcile the studiously quiet man at his table with the fury he’s capable of leaving behind.

Fett isn’t at all what he expected. They’ve fought each other in battle before, but they’d never exactly had time to talk. Obi-Wan had always assumed Fett would be more aggressive, more assertive – more _Mandalorian_ – than the quiet, carefully thoughtful presence that ghosts his apartment. He had never expected the Commander to _avoid_ confrontation, with a Jedi no less, and had braced himself for months of open hostility between them.

He doesn’t even think it’s solely for the sake of the peace. Obi-Wan gets the impression that this is simply how the Commander is. Reserved and careful, weighing up each of his actions before he makes them, considering their impact on others. It’s not so different from what Obi-Wan would expect of a disciplined Jedi, and that thought is… strange.

There’s a spike of muffled displeasure in the Force, and Obi-Wan allows himself to open his eye a little more. The Commander drops the datapad in disgust, and rakes his hands across his face in frustration.

“Would you like some help?” Obi-Wan finds himself asking.

The Commander jumps a little, as if he’s forgotten Obi-Wan is still in the room.

“I know how to programme a kriffing hyperdrive,” he says. “I’ve done it enough times.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“None of this makes any sense.” The Commander gestures at the pad. “I know Basic, but your names for things are completely different to what they’re supposed to be, and your ship designs are inefficient and confusing. How they fly is a miracle from the Manda.”

“Or the Force,” Obi-Wan says, not entirely serious. It may be true that Jedi fighters are more nimble and sensitive than any civilian craft, but that’s a feat of engineering, not the gods. That they’re too volatile to be flow by any _but_ a Force user is an entirely different matter.

Intense irritation crosses the Commander’s face, before he hides it neatly back behind blank indifference. Obi-Wan doesn’t miss the look of loathing he shoots at the pad, though.

“Maybe come back to it later?” Obi-Wan suggests.

“I don’t ever want to see it again,” he mutters.

Obi-Wan grimaces. He gets the sinking feeling he knows exactly what would help the Commander. He may not be the Mandalorian Obi-Wan expected, but he’s still a Mandalorian and he’s been idle too long. Belatedly, Obi-Wan recognises that he too wouldn’t deal well with forced inaction. The decision of the Council to keep him from the salles and most public spaces had been from the stance of protecting those in the Temple who had suffered at the hands of Mandalorians, to protect them from their own memories. And, perhaps, to spare the younglings from _having_ any memories.

They hadn’t really considered how that would effect the Prince.

Obi-Wan makes an executive decision on the Council’s behalf. “Would it help to train for a while?” he asks, before he can change his mind.

The Commander looks at him wearily. “I don’t think your apartment would survive.”

“No, but I had envisioned going somewhere with more space.”

“The salles? Is that a good idea?” Despite his words, the Commander sounds _hopeful_ and Obi-Wan can’t find it within himself to regret the offer.

“We’ll keep to ourselves.”

“You want to train _with_ me?” 

“Unless you’d prefer to train alone.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t think the pent up energy the Commander has will be easily fixed by walking through a few katas by himself. That energy has to be directed somewhere. At some _one_. And Obi-Wan considers himself a better target than any of his fellow Jedi. Best, he thinks, to keep the Commander where he can see him, so that he doesn’t pose a danger to anyone else. Just because he’s been civil so far, doesn’t mean it will last indefinitely.

“No,” the Commander says quietly, not sounding particularly happy about it. “I’d rather train with you.”

Obi-Wan eyes the Commander’s armour and tries not to baulk at the idea of sparring against someone in solid beskar. Fett hasn’t been out of it since Anakin’s visit, and Obi-Wan doesn’t need two guesses as to why. “Do you want to change?”

“The armour stays on,” he says, leaving no room for discussion.

Obi-Wan shrugs and eases himself to his feet, stretching his back because he can feel the hour’s meditation in his shoulders. He’ll have had worse fights, he supposes. At least the Commander won’t _actually_ be trying to kill him this time.

They walk out of the residential area with the Commander a pace behind and to his left. At first, Obi-Wan thinks it’s because he makes the Prince uncomfortable, but when they get into the more populated halls, he realizes it’s because people see him first, greeting him with smiles and loose shoulders, before they reflexively tense when they see Fett is with him. Obi-Wan can understand their hesitance to stick around in Fett’s presence but that doesn’t stop the ache of unease he feels in his chest when the Commander slams his helmet on. Obi-Wan gets the feeling it’s so no-one can see his face, and that makes him feel inexplicitly _guilty_.

The salles are fuller than he would have liked, but people make way for them, eyeing Fett wearily as they weave a path to an empty stretch of mat not far from the centre of the hall. It’s one of the Temple’s larger salles, and in hindsight, perhaps Obi-Wan should have brought him to one of the smaller, quieter ones on the lower levels. But they’re here now, and his fellow Jedi are going to have to get used to Fett’s presence.

As is Fett to theirs, he thinks wryly, looking at the Commander’s uncertain hovering by the nearest pillar.

“What would you like to do?” Obi-Wan asks him.

He watches as the Commander eyes a group of junior padawans giving them a wide berth and mistrustful glances, training staves in their hands. “Do you train with staffs?”

It’s not typically something a trained Jedi does. They use staves to teach weighting and stances to younglings, before they try it with their saber, but the principles are applicable and Obi-Wan is curious enough to see where it goes. “Of course.”

He leads Fett to one of the far walls and they each pick a stave from one of the racks. Fett’s is shorter and sturdier than the one Obi-Wan picks, and he tosses it experimentally between his hands as he nods to himself. 

Eyes follow them as they walk back and Fett sheds his blaster and holster, and after a moment’s hesitation, leaves his helmet on the edge of the mat next to it. They stare at each other from opposite sides of the mat, before Obi-Wan decisively drops into the first stance of Soresu. Fett doesn’t adopt a stance, instead keeping the stave parallel to his side as he walks his length of the mat. 

_Waiting_ , Obi-Wan realises. Mandalorian’s are always keen to be the first to attack, the first to press their advantage. With how much Fett seems to have been working up to this moment, Obi-Wan hadn’t expected him to be patient. Soresu is primarily defensive, and works on the basis of deflecting attacks, something he can’t do if Fett doesn’t move against him.

It strikes him with an alarming realisation, that this isn’t so different from the eve of some of their battles. There’s deliberate thought behind the attack and it _reeks_ of strategy.

Obi-Wan moves from Soresu to Ataru’s second stance, stave raised in front of him. Fett shifts his shoulders in response, still not rising to the bait. And so Obi-Wan is the first to attack, striking forwards across the distance of the mat with speed. His stave is met by Fett’s in a clash of wood that echoes off the stone pillars. He isn’t surprised by the strength behind the block, or the way his attack is cast to the side so Fett can feint for his ribs.

They both come away from the first test of blows, stepping back a reserved distance. They’ve got an audience, he can see it in his periphery, sense it in the Force. All curiosity, and mistrust.

When they step against each other next, it’s with a more forceful intent.

Fett fights in no identifiable form, but that doesn’t hide the fact he’s obviously been trained and he’s _good_. Obi-Wan struggles to land any hits that aren’t redirected to intentionally glance off the Commander’s armour. The style he fights in is aggressive and practiced, and uses Fett’s entire body, his armour included. He doesn’t hesitate to block Obi-Wan’s strikes with his vambraces, or to transfer his stave to one hand so he can punch Obi-Wan with the other. The pace is brutal, and Obi-Wan finds he has to push to keep up, enhancement of the Force or not.

But then, the Mandalorians _have_ adapted to keep up with Jedi, and their Prince is among their best.

The competitive part of him wonders just how far he must draw on the Force to best him. Obi-Wan sees an opening, and switches his intention to give Fett a fight that settles his nerves. So far he’s restrained his use of more _flamboyant_ Force techniques, meeting Fett on even ground, but now he uses the Force to launch his jump higher, to evade the reach of Fett’s stave as he strikes from above-

_-the Jetii comes out of nowhere, wielding a sword of burning green, so bright is burns into his retina. Around them the dust is so thick it clogs the filters of his helmet, saturating the air he breathes with the cloying tang of fresh blood. The static buzz of harnessed energy amplifies the pounding of his heart against his chestplate, too fast, too panicked. He can see the path the blade will take, that it will sever his neck if it hits its mark-_

-the Commander shifts his weight, adapting to Obi-Wan’s use of the high ground as he controls his fall, and Obi-Wan can see that they’re going to meet each other with force-

_-and he refuses to die like his buir did, in the dirt of a foreign planet, leaving those he’s sworn to protect to the fate of the Jetii. He’d held her buy’ce in his hands after the Jetii had severed it from her body, and he won’t inflict that pain on anyone. Rex is here, somewhere in the dust, and Cody won’t let him be the one to find his helmet. He’s not doing that to him, not when they’re both too young to be here anyway. Rex is barely sixteen, his baby brother shouldn’t have been forced to lead-_

-Obi-Wan’s attack gives him the advantage of being able to drive from above, but it means he’s committed; there’s no coming down easy, and one way or the other he’s making contact with Fett. But Fett twists, and Obi-Wan can sense the moment in the Force when he goes from deliberate, mindful attacks to something _instinctual_. Fett drives his stave in an arch above his head, knocking Obi-Wan off balance as they both collide-

- _they land on the floor together, the jetii’kad a burning heat near Cody’s neck, singeing his blacks._ _Someone, somewhere calls his name – or his rank at least – but the Jetii has him, and he can’t help them. She’s strong; a tholothian with blue eyes narrowed in determination. Cody knows she’s going to kill him, just as he knows he’s going to do everything in his power to stop her._

_The blistering heat of the jetii’kad makes him jerk back his neck as far as his helmet will allow, but it’s not enough, it’s too close and he doesn’t have his blaster anymore, it’s gone somewhere-_

-Fett’s hand closes around Obi-Wan’s wrist, forcing his stave to the side, hard enough that the impact jars up his arm-

_-it’s a battle of strength, the two of them trying to force the burning blade towards the other, teeth bared. The Jetii isn’t wearing a helmet, and when Cody headbutts her it hurts her far more than it hurts him, distracts her enough that he gets control of the blade for just long enough to force it away from his body and into her chest. She stills in shock, stops struggling even as her eyes search desperately for his beneath his visor. The life goes from them, but they don’t close. Then he’s scrambling back and stumbling to his feet-_

-Obi-Wan gasps in a breath as the pressure from the stave digging into his chest is released. Shields descend like durasteel shutters across the Commander’s mind, and he backs away, horrified. The salle is silent, and Obi-Wan realizes that he wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of the Commander’s uncontrolled projection. 

The _entire_ _salle_ just witness the death of Master Gallia.

Commander Fett is a famed Jedi killer, just like his father before him, one of the nightmares told in the crèche. His bloody career had been forged at the age of seventeen, brought to galactic attention when he killed a Councillor in cold blood. And he’s lived up to the reputation of that ever since. By all accounts, he’s a remorseless killer.

So why can Obi-Wan taste the Commander’s bile in the back of his throat and feel the lingering residue of a teenager’s terror?

Fett raises his hands placatingly as he backs away, slack fingers dropping the stave. He looks like he’s seen a spectre come back to life, and Obi-Wan can’t say that he _hasn’t_. The Commander’s feet reach the edge of the mat, and he turns to grab his blaster and helmet. As he stalks out of the salle people all but leap out of his way and Obi-Wan finds there’s a lump in his throat stopping him from calling out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jetii'kad - lightsaber 
> 
> Hello! In honour of passing all my exams and because it's my birthday, please accept this very happy chapter Xx


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ellieowl](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ellieowl)

Cody steps apprehensively into the cantina. As appealing as walking aimlessly around Coruscant’s lower levels forever may be, it’s decidedly not a good idea if he wants to keep breathing. Neither is returning to the fortress, which is how Cody justifies ending up in a bar on the seedier end of the scale. He’s pretty sure there’s two younglings sat in one of the corners, but he promptly decides that’s none of his business.

Nobody looks up as he makes his way to the bar, and he hovers for a moment, trying to decide what to order as he waits for the server to look up. It’s dark, despite the time of day, but then he’s so far from the planet’s surface it may as well be night. This far down, there doesn’t seem to be much distinction and it’s easy to slip into the plentiful shadows. And there are many in this cantina. 

He hadn’t had a destination in mind when he fled the fortress, only the need to get far away from the piercing judgement of the Jetii. His feet had taken him downwards, through receding light and thickening crowds. The stares had grown less and less until he’d reached a level where people had stopped caring about the style of his armour, more concerned with their own business. When Cody had started to stand out as a little _too_ polished, he’d decided this cantina had been as good a place as any to make his retreat.

Those who weren’t in the salle will know soon enough what happened there, and he has no desire to be around to see the fallout. Neither does he want to see the look of ashen horror on Kenobi’s face again. For all of Cody’s faults, he had thought the two of them might have come to a necessary stalemate despite their past rivalry. Hell, Cody had been willing to forgive the man for disfiguring his face if it made living alongside each other more cohesive. But taunting the man with the death of one of his people is unlikely to make him feel the same.

How could he have been so _stupid_? The outcome of a fight would never have been in his favour, and yet he’d leapt at the chance all the same. Maybe the Mando’ade reputation _is_ well deserved.

“What can I get you?” the server asks.

He orders the closest thing to tihaar he can get. Which at the centre of the Core is apparently Corellian whiskey. It’s not a strong as the tihaar they brew in Keldabe, more an attempt to recreate choking fumes than tihaar’s fiery burn, and it’s a warm brown colour instead of colourless, but Cody does his best to pretend. 

There’s a free booth at the back of the questionably sticky dance floor and he slides in so his back is to the wall and he can see the door. In hindsight, leaving the fortress in his full armour perhaps hadn’t been the best idea. It’s distinct enough that he’ll be recognised as Mando’ade if anyone cares to look his way, and if anyone is really into current events, he might even get tied to the 212th and the Mand’alor. He sighs and pulls his helmet off, resting it on the seat at his side so it’s hidden beneath the table.

As Cody sips his shitty not-tihaar, the misery and loneliness of the past fortnight sets in. He doesn’t think he’s spoken more than a few words to anyone since he left. He and Kenobi seem to do their best to keep out of each other’s way. Even when they’re in the same room, Kenobi will pointedly start meditating and Cody is hardly going to interrupt. Frankly, he doesn’t want to, and after today Kenobi isn’t going to want him to either.

He _knew_ he shouldn’t have agreed to a fight.

There’s too much history between their people to ever bridge and it was dangerous of him to try. It _hurt_ him to try, acting as a solid reminder of why the Jetii are feared throughout the galaxy. Reminded him of exactly what happens when a Jetii and a Mando’ade meet. Kenobi is no green cadet, and despite Cody’s history of surviving single combat against Jetii, he shouldn’t have been presumptuous enough to try and train with one.

It was foolish of him to think anything else would happen.

All he wants is to speak to someone who doesn’t think he’s a monster. Which is as pathetic as it sounds. How he ever thought he was worthy to hold his head high and offer his candidacy for Mand’alor to the Mando’ade is mockable. He’s too weak to survive in the midst of his enemy without breaking, without making fatal mistakes. How can anybody trust him to lead if he can’t keep his promises to look after them?

To rule is not something Cody has ever wanted. He’s always seen it as a heavy duty that he owed to his people, but now he’s starting to wonder if that thought had been nothing but naïve arrogance. To think he is the best candidate is shamefully entitled, and it makes him _embarrassed_ to even think about it now.

Manda, he _really_ wants to speak to someone who won’t call him a monster. It rules out the entirety of Coruscant, and makes him wish Rex had his six. Never before has he been so far from the backup of his vode. Mando’ade hold their family in the highest esteem, and to be _without_ them-

Cody really just wants to call Rex.

So he does, retrieving the comm from his belt and placing it on the table as it connects.

“Cody?”

“Hey Rex.”

“You’ve heard then?” Rex sighs. He’s visibly exhausted and his armour is covered in either ash or dirt. “Buir was trying to keep it quiet. Should have known it would get out anyway.”

The whiplash from what he was expecting has him reeling for a moment. “Wait, what?”

Rex frowns. “You’re calling about the attack, right?”

“What attack?”

“That’ll be a no then.” Rex sighs again, hand coming up to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I don’t suppose you’ll forget I said that?”

“ _What_ _attack_?” Cody growls again, pulling himself abruptly out of his pity party.

Rex drops his hand. “Keldabe was attacked last night. There’s no proof of who it was, but Buir suspects it was Kyr’stad. They were after the Jetii, though they targeted a number of places in the city as a distraction for the Guard.”

“ _Kyr’tsad_?” Cody asks, just to make sure he’s heard correctly. To be able to speak freely in Mando’a again is a relief, but to hear that word-

Cody hadn’t been born during their previous rein. After Galidraan they rose to prominence, the hero of the Mando’ade in his buir’s absence during Kryze’s attempts at heresy. When his father had returned and overthrown Kryze’s weak government, Kyr’tsad had lost their grasp on the hearts of the people and slipped from view. Officially, they’d been declared vanquished, though his father made it no secret to him that he hadn’t be able to defeat an enemy that hadn’t shown their face. They could be anywhere, _anyone_ , and that meant one day they might return if they sensed an exploitable weakness in his buir’s rule.

Like a desire for peace.

Cody swears and leans back in his chair. “Are you all alright?”

Rex shrugs. “Buir might have torn Fox a new one, but he’ll recover. They got into the palace and we don’t know how. To be fair to Fox, no-one else can work it out either. Which means it might happen _again_. But yes, we’re mostly fine, even the Jetii.”

“Thank the Manda.”

If something had happened to _any_ of them-

“Why _did_ you call, if you didn’t know of the attack?”

In hindsight, his problem isn’t nearly as bad as Rex’s. He lost control, and that’s entirely his fault. Rex could hardly have predicted a dormant terrorist group rising from the abyss to attack his charge. Cody _could_ have predicted feeling threatened to action by a Jetii. “It doesn’t matter.”

“ _Kote_.”

Cody shoots him a look of contempt. “I think I may have angered a lot of Jetii.”

“Nothing has changed there then.”

Cody swallows and realises he can’t keep anything from Rex, especially if he wants his brother’s advice. “We shield to keep Jetii out of our heads,” he says, rather unnecessarily. Rex knows _exactly_ why they were taught how to protect their minds. “Well, my shields might have dropped well I was surrounded by them, and I may have forced some of my thoughts upon them.” 

At least, that’s what he _thinks_ happened. It’s hard to tell, but he’d been so convinced he was back on that dust ball and the look of horror on their faces could only mean they thought so too. Maybe he overreacted, maybe they were just horrified he beat Kenobi. Though the look on Kenobi’s face hadn’t been shocked because he’d been beaten, he’d been _distracted_.

“Which thoughts?”

“Florrum. My first Jetii.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Cody agrees.

It hadn’t been his finest moment. Newly – and if he’s honest, pre-maturely – appointed to Captain, he’d been ordered to lead a patrol around the boundaries of their base when the Jetii had attacked. Isolated in the middle of a freak sandstorm, they’d been ambushed and Cody had tried desperately to get his verde into a defensive formation. Screams had been cut short as the Jetii worked her way through his verde and he hadn’t been able to stop her until she’d been on top of _him_. Her own forces had fled with her death, shaken by the loss of their god, leaving Cody to stumble blindly trying to reassemble his verde.

Eight of them had made it back to base. Out of an entire patrol.

Cody had clutched the Jetii’kad like a lifeline until he could drop it into the hands of the camp’s commandant. He hadn’t been able to meet anyone’s eyes until the next spate of deaths demanded his attention days later. His buir had told Cody to pull himself together, that people were relying on him to protect their lives.

And as harsh as it may have seemed, his buir hadn’t been _wrong_.

“It’s not like you to lose control,” Rex says carefully. “So why did you?”

It doesn’t sound like an accusation, but it should.

“I was fighting Kenobi- it was a duel, not a real fight,” he says. “And I forgot where I was.”

It’s a quiet confession.

And still Rex refuses to judge him. “They… they didn’t kick you out, did they?”

Cody shakes his head. “I left before they had the chance.”

“You _left_?”

Rex has every right to be incredulous, and if Cody’s honest he needs someone to berate him right now, even if it is his vod’ika. His actions have endangered the peace that so many lives rest on, and knows he owes it to them all to make it right. Because his buir is right, this is bigger than himself. What he wants _doesn’t_ _matter_.

“I’m going to go back,” he clarifies. “I _know_ I have to. I’m just giving everyone the time to calm themselves first.”

If he shows up while they’re all still processing what they’ve seen, he imagines he’s going to be on the receiving end of many angry sabers. And that wouldn’t help anyone. It’s ironic, really, that he’s relying on the Jetii’s infamous restraint for them not to kill him when he returns.

Something loud bangs on the table and Cody looks up to see the snout of a trandoshan feet from his face. And he looks _angry_. Behind him is a heavily scarred twi’lek man and an ubese. It’s not hard to see that they’re bounty hunters.

“Mandalorian,” he hisses, the Basic stark against the flow of Mando’a.

Cody _knew_ he should have been more careful. About a lot of things.

“Can I help you?” he asks, tensing.

“I believe you can,” the twi’lek behind says, smile all teeth. “You’re awfully far from home.”

Cody can’t place the harshness of their accent – he doesn’t sound like a native of Ryloth, but neither is he Coruscanti. Not that it makes the threat mistakable for anything other than exactly what it is.

Clearly, they don’t wish him well, and he weighs up his options. His fingers close around the blaster on his lap. There aren’t many people around to get caught in the crossfire, but it isn’t going to look good on Cody’s behalf if he’s run from the Jetii fortress _and_ killed three people under the nose of Coruscanti security in the space of a few hours. The Republic already think that Cody is a savage and he doesn’t want to prove them right. So, no blasters.

“It’s a long story,” he says, shooting Rex’s holo a look. His brother gives him a despairing look. “You sure you’ve got the time?”

The trandoshan snarls and leans forwards to grab the front of Cody’s chestplate. Cody allows his blaster to drop to the floor, grabbing his helmet and swinging it into the side of the trandoshan’s head as he stands. The grip on his plate falters and he twists free, lurching out from behind the table as the twi’lek goes for his blaster. 

It isn’t hard to fathom why three beings in the heart of the Core wish him dead. He imagines most people here _do_ want to see him bleed. Here his name carries the weight of his deeds very differently to his home, and people want him to suffer for it. The twi’lek probably has a personal grudge, but Cody would bet the other two are only in it for the bounty on his head. He’s assuming he’s got one, but he’s never actively looked. It’s not like he _wants_ to know how much others want him dead. That’s the sort of morbid fascination Fox or Wolffe, and maybe even his buir, have with death.

Cody simply entrusts the Manda will take him when they’re ready.

He dodges the twi’leks’ shot and elbows the ubese before he can get the vibroblade close enough to use. One solid punch is all it takes to put the ubese out of commission, though the trandoshan seems to take that as a personal affront and Cody has to move swiftly to keep out of the way of grasping claws. The twi’lek takes the few seconds his back is unguarded to aim for Cody’s back, and the air is expelled from his lungs even as the beskar dispels the worst of the damage. He has the sense of mind to twist and grab the twi’lek’s blaster from their grasp, swinging it back into the side of their skull hard enough to send them flying limply across the dance floor. 

Cody sets the twi’leks blaster to stun as the trandoshan comes careening at him again. He ducks under a fist to fit the barrel neatly into the soft juncture underneath the trandoshan’s jaw and pulls the trigger. The trandoshan slumps, stunned, and Cody throws off the dead weight in disgust.

He’s not had enough of the whiskey for it to have had any kind of numbing effect, and the twi’lek’s lucking shot sends unpleasant skitters up his back. He knocks back the rest of it unflinchingly, and picks up his helmet, readying to leave.

“Things are going well then?” Rex asks, like the shit he is.

“Let’s just say I had more fun on Alzoc.”

“Didn’t the locals try to sacrifice you to their moon goddess?”

“At least they were honest about it,” he grumbles. “I’m so tired of everyone _pretending_ they don’t want to kill me.”

“They’re not pretending-” Rex starts, and Cody reacts more to the way Rex’s eyes flick to his left than to the sound of boots right behind him.

He drops out of the way of an ill-timed punch and the trandoshan’s fist smashes down on the table, shattering his comm. Rex disappears, but Cody has already turned away, ducking under another meaty fist to get behind his opponent and smash his buy’ce into the back of the trandoshan’s head. It’s the final insult his brain seems to be able to tolerate and he drops like a shiny after their first spar with Wolffe.

Cody stares at his smashed comm and sighs, tucking it into his pocket to avoid a later problem with greedy slicers and grabs his own blaster. It would have been nice to say goodbye to Rex, but he supposes he can’t complain. They’ve certainly had shorter conversations when one of them is in enemy territory. Rex will just have to worry about him for a while.

Hanging around her doesn’t seem like a good idea, so Cody picks his way over the unconscious bodies and heads over to the door. He really should get back to the fortress and begin to make amends before things get any worse. Which isn’t something someone of his reputation should tempt.

“You gonna pay or am I gonna have to call security?” the bartender calls out.

He stills, cursing silently. In all honesty, he’d completely forgotten about paying. Back on Mandalore he’s never been short of money – his rank pays well, even before the consideration that he’s a prince. Most of the places he and his vode frequent have a tab charged straight to the palace, and for those that don’t Cody has always had enough money. But he doesn’t have a single Republic credit to his name, which is an embarrassing oversight for someone with a reputation for detail.

It’s _not_ stealing, he tells himself as he turns over the twi’lek’s body and roots through their pockets until he finds a coin pouch and tosses it to the bartender. He has no idea how credits work and he can only hope there’s enough in there to cover him. The bartender barely bats an eyelid, doing little more than sparing the attention to wave him away, which makes Cody suspect he might have seriously overpaid. 

In the same pocket he finds another pouch of synthleather containing bounty pucks he takes for himself, mostly out of curiosity. Briefly, he considers searching the others, but he can feel the stares from the gloom of the cantina and instead chooses to leave while he still can.

The two girls he saw hiding themselves in the corner when he arrived are waiting for him when he steps outside. In the glare of the nearest light he can see them properly; the first is a pale skinned twi’lek and the second is an even paler human. Neither of them can be above the age of the majority, though Cody is hit by the impression they’ve seen far too much for their age. 

“Are you a bounty hunter?” the first girl asks Cody, her arms crossed protectively across her chest.

The idea that he could perceivably be a bounty hunter rankles, but announcing that he’s Mando’ade doesn’t seem the wisest option available to him. “I am,” he agrees.

“Good, you can help us then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Verde - soldiers  
> Jetii'kad - lightsaber  
> Kyr'stad - Death Watch  
> Vod'ika - little brother
> 
> Thank you for all of your lovely comments, they never fail to make me smile :)
> 
> If you want to shout at me you can find me on tumblr as [ellieowl](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ellieowl)


	17. Chapter 17

He’s reluctant to linger outside of the bar after the fight, and the girls are insistent they know a safe place to talk. Following strangers into the underbelly of Coruscant seems dangerous, but he has a gut feeling that this is _important_. Like he did the night before Geonosis. There’s something bigger going on. To ignore it could be worse than the possible consequences.

The one who introduces herself as Berri – the twi’lek girl – leads the way, winding ever downwards through the packed streets of Coruscant’s underworld. After half an hour she takes a purposeful turn into an alleyway and turns to face him. Cody is surprised by the sudden stop, and looks around expecting to find a door or something that could be their destination. 

Behind Berri is a structure made from boxes and pilfered rubbish, leaning against the side of the alley, hidden from sight of the main street. It occurs to Cody that this _is_ their destination and the girls live here. His gut feeling gets a whole lot worse.

“So,” Amee – the human girl – says, moving to stand next to her friend. “We want to hire you for a job.”

Her accent doesn’t sound Coruscanti. It’s too harsh and sharp, and despite her affinity for Basic, it’s as much her first language as it is Cody’s. Not that he expected anyone from this far below the surface to have Kenobi’s aristocratic lilt. Cody… tries not to think about Kenobi, or the way he’d left the man on the floor as he fled the scene of his crime.

“What kind of job?” he asks against his better judgement.

If his buir even caught him _pretending_ to be a bounty hunter, he’s pretty sure he would be disinherited.

“A rescue mission,” Berri says. “We managed to escape from the facility, but our friends are still stuck in there.”

“The facility?”

“The processing facility.”

Cody’s estimation of the situation _sinks_. “What does it process?” he asks cautiously.

“ _People_ ,” Amee spits.

“You’re _slaves_?” Cody asks, incredulous.

The Republic and Mandalorian Parliament may disagree on a great many things, but the outlawing of slavery is the one thing they unanimously enforce. Cody knows that the Republics efforts to annihilate slavery is nowhere near as rigorous as Mandalore’s, but for such a facility to exist in the heart of the Republic seems unbelievable. The corruption here may be dire, but he’d thought there’d be a _limit_. 

“We’re not slaves,” Amee says vehemently, “we’re _people_.”

Cody grimaces in apology. “How did you escape?”

Berri looks at Amee, and they share a look far too grim for two ten-year-olds.

“My mother distracted them while we ran.”

Cody can imagine she wouldn’t have survived as a distraction for long. “Are you not chipped?”

“They won’t set the chips off while we’re still on Coruscant, not if they want to avoid bringing attention to themselves.”

He tries very hard not to think about the fact that he’s stood next to two very live explosives, instead focusing on the wave of hatred that makes him grind his jaw. They’re _younglings_ ; the last thing they should be worrying about is someone activating their chips because they’ve grown bored of waiting for them to return. Cody has dedicated his entire life to the eradication of slavery, but it’s never been on this kind of level before. Usually he’s fighting in orbit or giving orders from a battlefield. The actual act of freeing slaves never falls to him, and the difference is suddenly apparent.

These are just children, forced to act with far more maturity than their age.

He reaches up and removes his helmet so they can see his face, and he crouches so they’re at eye level. Berri stares at his scar, but doesn’t say anything.

“We can’t pay you,” Amee says, and Berri elbows her hard in the side. “ _Hey_ -”

“ _Don’t tell him that_ ,” Berri says in scandalised Huttese. “ _Bounty hunters only work for money_.” 

Cody doesn’t correct her assumption he can’t understand, more out of concern he’ll mortify her than out of any real expectation it’ll be to his benefit. With Mandalore’s expansion into Hutt space, and their increasing reliance on intelligence from natives and the need to earn the allegiance of former slaves, it had seemed prudent to learn. 

Berri looks at him. “The masters have lots of money. If you help us, you can take it from them.”

It’s blaringly, painfully obvious that their case is hopeless. Only a complete and utter fool would choose to aid them.

Well, Wolffe always said he was a _di’kut_.

“I’ll help you,” Cody agrees, “but you need to tell me everything you know.”

\---

Both of them are from Tatooine. Berri and her mother fled Ryloth just before the Republic siege to try and escape the war, and ran straight into a different kind of hell when they were taken by slavers. Amee and her ancestors have been slaves for as long as anyone can remember, and her mother had given her life to try and break that cycle. It seems they were smuggled from Tatooine to Coruscant as part of a venture to expand the slave trade into the Core. With Mandalorian pressures in Hutt space and the Outer Rim, the trade is trying to adapt to new markets.

Cody isn’t sure how he feels about that. For all they’re trying to help, it seems they’re just shifting the problem from one place to another without eliminating the source. Though he doesn’t think the greed in the galaxy can ever really be defeated.

It’s late by the time they’ve finished their tale, tripping over each other when one of them remembers something they want to share. The way they chime in with details and look to each other for confirmation reminds Cody of Rex and himself when they were younger and less experienced, checking that the other had their backs. They grow more sure of themselves with each word, until their chatter becomes more incessant and less focused. Cody doesn’t have the heart to move them back on track.

He ends up crawling into their questionably effective shelter when Amee drags him rather instantly inside. They extract a promise from him that’ll he’ll scout the facility the next day and begin to plan how to take it down. Cody tries to refrain from promising anything because he honestly doesn’t know what he’s got himself into, but they look at him with sad, hopeful eyes and he can feel his will breaking.

Amee could give Boba a run for his money.

It’s cramped inside, but the girls fall asleep almost immediately. They seem concerningly trusting of him, resting their heads on his pauldrons without asking, as if they were his verde and not virtual strangers. Cody finds he can’t sleep, his body convinced he should be on guard, wary of danger. It leaves him alone with his thoughts, which is always dangerous for someone with so many demons.

Inadvertently, he finds himself thinking of Kenobi. The man’s haunted horror is still clear in his mind, and Cody can’t help but think he’s only solidified the man’s perception of him. Maybe Cody _is_ the monster they all think him to be. He’s certainly been acting as if he is. Self-loathing crawls up his throat, almost as insistent as the shame he feels for his loss of control.

Battle sickness is nothing foreign to him. He’s spent his entire life around soldiers, whether in their prime or the aftermath. Not a single verde he knows has come away from their duty unscathed, and it’s a simple fact of life that some battle injuries are physical and some are inflicted on the mind. Both are regarded as what they are; not a reckoning from the Manda, but an illness above the control of single being. A warrior who survives the battle sickness is just as much a fighter as one who loses a limb. Cody would never dream of suggesting otherwise.

Except, perhaps, when it comes to himself.

Nightmares are hardly foreign to him. He’s been dream of blood and dust and the _screams_ since he was thirteen years old and had to pick his buir’s helmet out of the Geonosian dust. But it’s been drilled into him just as long that he can’t afford for them to get the better of him – that he doesn’t have the luxury of the same weaknesses as his verde. 

Stifled screams and bitten knuckles are the only comforts he can indulge in, as long as he does so in the shadows. People will hardly follow a man who appears to be falling apart at the seams – Cody can’t afford to show anything but a beskar front to everyone, no matter how he’s really feeling inside. The Mand’alor has made that _perfectly_ clear.

Nobody can know that he suffers the same as others do. That would be selfish of him – he would be putting himself before the needs of Mandalore and the Mando’ade, and that would be the greatest failure of all.

Next to him, Berri mutters something in her sleep and wraps a skinny arm around his vambrace as she mutters something into his pauldron. She’s so small and unguarded, and Cody is afraid for her in all the ways she should be for herself. He’d call her naïve, but he has no doubt she’s seen the evils of the galaxy for what they really are. And still she allows herself to trust. It goes against everything he’s been taught – about his priorities and attachments, about putting Mandalore above all else – but he can’t help but worry on her behalf. He feels _protective_ of the both of them.

One thing is clear; the more time he spends away from Mandalore, the less sure he is of everything he’s always held to be true. It’s like the pillars of his beliefs are being shaken from the foundations upwards and he’s not sure they will survive the assault. Where the Jetii should be aggressive warmakers, they’re instead wilfully non-confrontational. Where the Core should be a smoothly oiled machined, it’s instead bloated and corrupt, led by politicians who serve only to line their own pockets. Slavery is creeping into the centre of the Core, a place is should never have managed to be ignored. How could the Mandalorian Parliament fail to counter such ineptitude?

Cody wants peace, but he questions why his buir doesn’t push the rotting carcass of the Republic into collapse. He thinks the only thing propping it up is the Jetii’s stubbornness, and from what he can tell, even that’s reaching its limit.

There must have been a reason _they_ agreed to peace, after all.

Mostly, though, Cody is losing faith in his own capabilities.

He’d be a fool to have missed the way no-one can stand to be in a room with him. His presence makes them distinctly uncomfortable, even Kenobi. They look at him and their hackles rise. All Cody has ever wanted is to make people feel safe – not just Mando’ade, but all the planets under Mandalore’s care, and even those beyond. He doesn’t want to be the cause of suffering, he wants to end it.

But all he seems to be capable of is making things _worse_.

He looks at Berri, so trustingly peaceful in her sleep, and can’t shake the feeling it’s his fault she’s here. It was his family who moved on Ryloth, and his family who maintained the siege. If not for that, if not for the incursion on her homeworld, Berri might always have been free.

He played his part, however unknowingly, in her fate and so he owes it to her to make amends.

Which leaves him with a dilemma. Cody came here to secure peace, but instead he finds himself hiding in Coruscant’s belly having assaulted another member of the Jetii Council and fled the scene of his crime. If he doesn’t make amends and show up to the ratification of the treaty in the Senate in six days time then everyone’s efforts towards the peace will be in vain and that will be _his_ fault.

But neither can he leave Berri and Amee to their inevitable fate.

It’s an unfair choice, and logic dictates he leave for the Jetii fortress now despite his promises to help Amee and Berri. More than a handful of lives will rest on his shoulders should the treaty fail. Billions and billions of lives hang in the balance, and Cody is endangering that for two frightened children.

But he _can’t_ leave them. The Jetii won’t help them, not from their towers, and Cody can’t leave them to die, or a fate worse than death. He hates to think what will happen should they be captured – in fact he’s going to ensure it never happens. His entire life has been sworn to fighting against the evils of the slave trade and it’s oily reaches. It would betray everything Cody has been brought up to believe to abandon them and he won’t do it. His entire faith in himself is being questioned, and he’s going to cling to the one thing he knows is right.

Besides, Cody is good at taking the impossible odds. He’s beat _Jetii_ and it’s hard to get more impossible than that. Whose to say he can’t take down an illicit slave ring alone and still make the treaty’s ratification?

Assuming the Republic doesn’t call off their agreement in his absence.

Absently, he wonders who would have won the fight if not for his ridiculous panic. Overwhelming Kenobi with one of his worst memories hardly seems fair, and until the end it had been clear the man had been holding back from using his magic. The competitive part of Cody wants to say that is doesn’t matter, that he would have won anyway, but he isn’t so sure. Kenobi is _fast_ , and Cody is just Cody.

Before he came to Coruscant, he’d had been so sure he was ready to take his father’s place when the time arrived. Now, he’s not so certain. He’s been humiliated and afraid and panicked by the presence of his enemy, something no Mando’ade should ever let get to them the way it’s got to Cody. Without his vode and his verde, Cody doesn’t have the same conviction or strength, and now he questions if he ever had it at all, or if his every achievement has been a lie hidden behind the privilege of his position.

_Would he be the same person if he weren’t a prince? Would he have made marshal commander if his buir weren’t the Mand’alor. Is he worthy of the fame he’s given?_

Cody realises he doesn’t know how much of his success is attributed to him, and how much is the circumstance of his birth and he realises it’s an insecurity that allows the fear he feels in the presence of the Jetii to grow stronger. All of the confidence he once felt in himself fled when he left Mandalore, and he’s afraid that’s enough of an answer of its own.

It’s a while before the urge to fidget wins, and he pulls out the bag of bounty pucks he took from the hunter for something to occupy his hands, spilling them into his palm to see them better. There’s five of them, four of which he doesn’t recognise, but the fifth he does. The fifth is _him_. 

Cody may not know the price of a single Corellian whiskey in Republic credits, but he’s familiar with Calamari Flan. His bounty is _disproportionately_ high. The puck emphasizes the need to bring him in alive, and the low-level unease in his gut intensifies to dread. Someone very rich and very powerful has plans for him.

That Cody has enough enemies that he can’t even narrow down the number of people with that kind of money onto two hands is very telling. He’s mostly sure they must be a part of the Republic. That, or they have allies here, possibly even in the Jetii fortress. It’s been playing on his mind just how quickly the bounty hunters showed up – how quickly they knew _where_ to show up – and if someone inside the fortress told them it would explain an awful lot. It’s a far more convincing theory than simply happening across the right target.

It’s also far more concerning.

He knows the Jetii don’t like him, but he thought they were at least united by their desire for peace. If one of them is working against it then Cody’s life is about to get a whole lot more trying. Jetii might be many thing, but rich and powerful they are not. Magical monks don’t get paid very well, which means they must be working for someone else. Someone who is in enough of a position to influence _Jetii_.

Cody really, really hopes it isn’t Kenobi. He has more respect for the man than that. Though after this afternoon, he might understand if the man wants him gone.

It’s entirely possible he is a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Verde – soldiers  
> Vode – brothers/ sisters  
> Di’kut – idiot 
> 
> I'm very sorry about the slow update, this week has been HECTIC. I also realise this chapter is a lot of Cody's introspection, and I promise the next chapter is from a different POV, but it felt necessary when I was writing :)


	18. Chapter 18

He gives Cody two whole _days_ to call him back before he allows himself to panic and accept that something serious might have happened to his ori’vod. That, or he’s found a new priority. It’s happened before; Cody has a tendency to get _distracted_ when he’s on a mission. Maybe distracted is the wrong word, that implies a level of unawareness. _Everything_ Cody does is intentional, he’s far too good a tactician to act otherwise. He weighs up all of the factors available to him, constantly revaluating his mission objectives. And if he thinks one objective is suddenly more important than another, then he has a tendency to readjust his plan of attack.

Most people would call that getting side-tracked. Cody calls it prioritising.

Rex can’t tell if Cody has gotten side-tracked or kidnapped – honestly, the odds are equal. It’s hard to imagine a cause important enough to tempt his brother from his duty, but that doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Rex may be the closest with Cody, but he’s long since given up pretending he can understand half of the things his vod does.

His buir isn’t forthcoming at all. It had taken two days for a missive from the Jetii fortress to come through, asking _them_ if they know where Cody is. Given they don’t, and the Republic are claiming innocence, the Jetii seem to have jumped to the conclusion his vod has been kidnapped. But there’s no ransom demand or terrorist propaganda to support that, and Rex is much more inclined to believe Cody has thrown himself headlong into something he really shouldn’t have.

And that’s based off his _personal_ experiences serving with Cody.

Regardless of the reason for Cody’s comm silence and apparent disappearance, someone needs to find him before the peace falls through. And at the moment it’s _brittle_. The hostage exchange is the only thing tying it together and if it gets out to the Mando’ade that their prince has disappeared under mysterious circumstances after fighting with Jetii, there will be nothing in the galaxy that will be able to hold back the tide of the war.

Not even the Mand’alor.

His buir already thinks the Jetii have their part to play in this, and his anger and fear for Cody are already beginning to cloud his judgement. Rex has just got off a tense call with Wolffe because his buir has put the Outer Siege forces on high alert without bothering to consult his council first. Or Rex for that matter. The Republic forces stationed there must have noticed the sudden explosion of activity. It’s only a matter of hours before they respond in kind, blasters charged and ready.

Rex thinks it’s a mistake, jumping straight for action. He’s always been taught to never draw a weapon unless he has the intention of firing it – by his buir, no less – and he knows exactly how quickly this situation is going to deteriorate. He can understand his buir’s frantic fear over Cody’s safety, but antagonising the only people who have the chance to find him isn’t going to help.

Which is why Rex finds himself outside of Tano’s door after swearing to keep away.

After Cody’s disappearance and the attack, she’s under triple guard at all times of the day. Rex himself does the perimeter at sunup and sundown, and has a constant feed of updates on her status on his buy’ce’s HUD at all times of the day. He’s taking no chances, even if he’s managed to keep from entering her new rooms.

It’s pathetic, but he’s been avoiding her since the disaster of the bombing and the brief moment of shared camaraderie. He found it disturbing, and the bone deep revulsion hasn’t gone away. Not for her – despite everything, he can’t blame her for that – but for _himself_. His dreams have been haunted by blades of burning plasma and crushing, invisible forces around his throat. In them _he_ is the Jetii reining destruction down upon worlds, wielding the Jetii’kad with indiscriminate fury and it makes him _afraid_.

It’s a fear that is hidden carefully beneath his buy’ce, kept from the rest of the galaxy because it’s his burden to bear and no-one else’s. Now, most of all, he can’t falter, can’t allow weakness to guide him.

His buir taught him that.

Rex acknowledges the guards outside her door – a mixture of his own 501st and Fox’s Guard – and knocks. He tries to suppress his wince as Tano opens the door, for all that she can’t see it. Forensics have determined the charges were placed in the vents above her bedroom – not _how_ though, and Fox has become rather unhealthily obsessed by it – so the Jetii has lost everything she brought with her. Most of that side of the living quarters had been completely destroyed, and everything within them too. The housekeeper has managed to source a replacement wardrobe for her, though it’s far more… _Mando’ade_.

Instead of loose robes, the Jetii now wears a more fitted tunic, the neck and cuffs embroidered with geometric gold thread. Rex tells himself that the royal blue is for the colours of Clan Fett because she’s their guest and not because it’s comparable to the 501st colours. 

She’s got a new belt from somewhere too, and Rex tries to pretend his eyes don’t slide to the sabers clipped there. Besides her boots, they’re the only thing that marks her out as a Jetii. When Rex thinks about the brilliant blue, the heat, the fine static noise, all he can think about is cooked flesh and tortured screams, and his chest gets tight. That he used a saber against another Mando’ade, even an _arueteii_ , makes him feel like he is the one who should be labelled a traitor.

“Captain,” she greets him evenly. Bacta patches are still visible along her neck and under her cuffs. She sees him looking and tugs them down self-consciously. Keeping her in the infirmary had been unnecessarily difficult, and the healers had eventually given up. “Would you like to come in?”

She leads him to the greeting area and the small couches there, looking at him expectantly as she sits. Rex stands there unwilling for a moment before he tells himself he’s being a _di’kut_ and makes himself sit too. These rooms are much smaller than the ones in the royal wing, though at least they’re still in one piece. All of them, even his buir, have moved out until Fox is absolutely sure the security breach is contained. Given the palace’s royal wing had been dubbed impenetrable, Rex isn’t hopeful he’ll get to return any time soon.

“Are you alright?” Rex asks awkwardly.

Tano shrugs. “I’m alive, so no harm done.”

He scowls in disapproval. It’s blatantly not true, and made worse by the fact that Slick must have had inside help. As a minor sergeant in Cody’s battalion, there’s no reason he should have been able to gain access to any of the palace, let alone the royal wing. The real culprit is still very much alive, and probably back safe in a Kyr’tsad stronghold, far from the reach of justice. “I find that difficult to believe, _Jetii_.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You say that as if it’s an insult, _your_ _highness_.”

They both know it is, be he can hardly _say_ so. And then Rex feels guilty, because she may be an adult, but she’s only _seventeen_ and he knows what it’s like to be surrounded by your enemy and alone at that age. He knows the loneliness and the _helplessness_ , and the way it tries to lash out at friend and foe alike. That she’s even talking to him says far more about her than it does him.

“Sorry,” he says, because he’s better than this. Better than the Jetii.

She looks uncomfortable, but shakes her head and puts on a smile that can only be false. “How can I help you, Captain?”

“My brother has gone missing.”

“I heard. But he’s hardly been in contact with me.”

He judges how much is public knowledge and how much only he and the Council know. He shouldn’t share Council secrets with Tano, but he needs her help because nobody else seems to be doing anything to find Cody. “You can’t tell anyone-”

“-with all due respect, I don’t have anyone to tell-”

“-besides Kenobi.” He doesn’t like the idea of collaborating with Jetii, but Cody could be in danger and he’ll never forgive himself if something happens to his brother because he failed to act. And because Rex can hardly show up on Coruscant without plunging them back into a war, he’s going with the next best option he has.

Even if it’s from Cody’s undeclared nemesis.

“Look, we didn’t tell your Jetii council everything. They only asked us if we know where Cody is, and we don’t. They didn’t ask if we know anything more, and we do. _I_ do. My father doesn’t want to discuss it with your Council – don’t look at me like that, he doesn’t trust them – but I think we need to work together if we’re going to find him.”

Tano’s brows draw closer together. “You don’t want to talk to the Council, but you want to talk to Master Obi-Wan. You know he’s on the Council, right?”

Rex _does_ and he really doesn’t want to go behind his buir’s back or defy his word, but he’s not sure what else to do. “He can act outside his council, surely?”

She looks thoughtful. “I suppose he has a good sabaac face. I can’t promise he’ll agree to it though. I can try to call him.”

She goes and retrieves her comm and places it on the table between them. It’s answered almost as soon as it’s dialed. Rex can only take that as an insult – Kenobi must have her on a special alert, always ready to jump to her aid.

“Ahsoka, hello my dear. Are you- _what happened_?” For the first time since Rex has met her, Tano looks almost _abashed_.

“There was a small skirmish, that’s all.”

Kenobi looks at her pointedly. “I hardly think a small skirmish would get the better of you.”

It looks like they’ve caught the General at a bad time. He has the harried look of someone pulled away from important business.

“We’re calling about my brother,” Rex cuts in, and Kenobi’s entire demeanour changes when Rex leans forwards enough to be picked up by the projector.

“Captain,” he greets far less warmly. “As I told your father, I have heard nothing from your brother since he left the Temple.”

“I’m sure you’d have been in contact the second you had.” Rex says bitterly, resisting the urge to snap more pointed accusations. “You parted on such amicable terms after all.”

“If that is an accusation, please don’t hold back on my account.” Kenobi replies with infuriating politeness. “Your father certainly didn’t.”

That makes him pause. Rex had been in the room with his buir and half the Council, fresh out of a session in Parliament when the Jetii had called to ask about Cody. It hadn’t been the politest of conversations, and there had certainly been curt mistrust on both sides, but neither had hurled accusations at the other, too afraid to shatter the cordiality holding together the treaty. Which can only mean his buir has since called the Council _back_. Without consulting anyone first.

The Mand’alor might have absolute power over the Mando’ade, but for one to start acting unpredictably and vicariously, without first asking the opinions of another is _dangerous_. It leads to rash decisions and great destruction, especially when the person making those bad decisions has an arsenal large enough to take on the Republic. 

It leads to _war_.

Which his buir _cannot_ want. He worked so hard to bring this peace about and for him to try and destroy it now is absurd. Rex suddenly feels very old and very responsible. Technically, with Cody Manda-knows-where, Rex is the heir-elect. Besides his buir, and despite being a lowly captain still, he is the second in command of Mandalore. Since his buir has failed to officially appoint another second after Cody, should something happen to him, it will be Rex who will have to preside over the Mandalorian systems until another Mand’alor is decided.

With that kind of responsibility, Rex has to act now. If war resumes, it will be just as much his fault for failing to stop it, as it will be his buir’s for helping to start it.

Rex reaches up and removes his helmet, settling it in his lap as he makes reluctant eye contact with the holo. Kenobi only raises an eyebrow expectantly. Rex – slowly at first – tells him all he knows about the cantina Cody had called from and what happened there.

“And the call cut off before the fight finished?” Kenobi clarifies. “The bar could be anywhere on the lower levels, but a trandoshan, a twi’lek and an ubese are a very specific group. I’ll see what I can do.”

Rex nods, tracing an imperfection in the paint of his buy’ce with his nail. Beneath the beskar is visible. “You’ve never had a problem finding each other before.”

And hadn’t they laughed about that in the aftermath of battles. That wherever Kenobi showed up, it was almost certain Cody would too. They used to joke that the Manda had tied together their fates, and that until one of them had settle their duel, they would continue to do so.

“It’s just Cody’s luck he got stuck with his _ori aru’e_ ,” Rex sighs. “Of all the Jetii, why you?” 

It could be worse, Cody could be stuck with Dooku, but it still seems cruel.

“You don’t know?” Kenobi has the gall to look surprised. “Your father requested me specifically. He made it a non-negotiable tenant of the treaty.”

“Why would he do that? Cody _hates_ you.” Rex says before he can think better of it.

Kenobi’s holo flickers and winces.

But it’s not like Rex is wrong. The two of them are responsible for about forty percent of the last decade’s conflict alone. Their rivalry is infamous and one of the reasons the black market betting pools have such low odds for the treaty ever succeeding. That their buir would intentionally set them up for failure – for a situation exactly like the one they find themselves in, with Cody missing and the Jetii at fault for it – is incomprehensible.

His buir _wants_ this peace.

“I don’t know. I suggest you ask him.”

But Rex _can’t_. That would be too close to question his buir’s motives, too close to accusing his buir of endangering the peace. With how skittish everyone is with each other in the palace as it is, he’s not sure he can afford to ask that barbed question. In the week since the attack the atmosphere has gained the same dangerous charge as a primed pulse grenade. What they need now is unity above all else, or Kyr’tsad will manipulate the fear for their own gain.

Besides, he’s sure his buir has his reasons.

“Ahsoka, my dear, if you need anything don’t hesitate to call.”

The Commander nods, and signs off, leaving Rex with the uncomfortable knowledge there’s nothing more he can do for Cody short of taking an armada to Coruscant.

“You didn’t tell him about the attack, why?” Rex asks her quietly.

Tano shrugs, and pulls at the embroidery on her cuff. “It wouldn’t have helped the peace.”

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Rex says quietly. And what’s more, he means it.

The alternative is unthinkable.

She gives a small smile. “Thanks.”

It might be the closest they’ve come to agreeing, and Rex is suddenly hit with the feeling he owes her an explanation about what’s going to happen next. “I’ve been assigned a mission by the Mand’alor, I might be gone for some time.”

In Cody’s absence, Rex has been handed the gundark’s nest that is unearthing the cause of the attack on Keldabe. And hadn’t _that_ been a fun Council meeting, with all the members vying for an opportunity to fill his vod’s shoes, even after his buir had declared Rex would lead the investigation. Kryze had been the worst, insufferably insistent that she should be the one to find Kyr’tsad. She has the experience, she’d argued; after all, her sister had been an insurgent once upon a time and Bo-Katan had helped to deal with _her_.

If Rex didn’t dislike her so much, he’d wish she had been given the mission instead.

His buir hadn’t changed his mind despite her best efforts and now Rex is stuck with the footwork. It’s the kind of puzzle Cody and Bly would love. Rex has neither the patience nor the energy to deal with the bantha shit he knows he’s going to get dragged into, but duty is duty. Even if his buir’s parting remark was an order to take a medic with him.

Rex just _knows_ the entire mission is going to go South as soon as he steps outside the palace.

“I’ve assigned some of my best _verde_ to guard you in my absence, and the Guard will be around too. You’ll be safe.”

“I’m sure, Captain.” 

She doesn’t sound it though, and it makes Rex hesitate. She hadn’t told her ba’buir about the attack for the sake of the peace. That makes her one of the most trustworthy people currently in the palace, one of the few who can be counted on to do what’s needed to prevent the War starting again. It’s a sorry state of affairs, and not a position he thought he would ever find himself in, but neither can he ignore such an obvious ally in the silent battle being waged in the palace.

He can’t afford to.

Since the bombing, the divide in beliefs between those who support the actions taken by Kyr’tsad and those who condemn them are growing more evident, not less. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that it isn’t a problem that will resolve itself. Soon, they might be warring on two fronts instead of the one they had before.

Once, before they took up ranks and stepped aboard star cruisers, the Jetii were sent out into the galaxy to _solve_ problems, not exacerbate them. Rex can only hope that tradition can be revived, at least by Tano. She’s one hell of a fighter, and sees things from perspectives he would never have considers. He isn’t about to turn down that kind of asset when the alternative is leaving her to wallow in the palace, where Slick’s allies might still be at large.

Rex offers her the olive branch. “Come with me?” he asks before he can change his mind.

His buir isn’t going to be impressed, but he’s currently too preoccupied to give Rex more than a Council meeting worth of his time. And he _has_ given the responsibility of looking after the Jetii to Rex.

“You want me to work with you?” she asks sceptically.

He scowls. “Or you could stay here, in your room. The choice is yours.”

“I suppose someone is likely to try and stab me either way.”

“You don’t even know what we’re doing.”

“It’ll involve Mandalorians and danger.”

Rex winces. She might have a point. “If they don’t know you’re a Jetii they’ll be less likely to shoot you.”

“That’s comforting.”

Rex fights back an amused snort. “You’ll join me then?”

“There’s nothing I’d rather do.”

He’s not so sure about that, but he stands with his buy’ce under his arm and gives her a stilted bow of acknowledgement before he walks to the door.

“Captain?” she calls as it opens, and he pauses. “Why?”

Many would call him an _aruetii_ for daring to ask a Jetii to have his back, but he’s come to the uncomfortable realisation they’re both working towards the same thing. They may as well do it together, that way they’re stronger. Even if her unnatural reflex will always make his skin crawl, they did save his life. And he saved hers. 

Oddly, he trusts her. Or he at least trusts her motives.

“I don’t trust anyone else to protect you,” he lies.

He has a reputation to uphold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ori’vod – older brother  
> Jetii’kad – lightsaber   
> Di’kut – idiot   
> Ori aru’e – greatest enemy; colloquial for nemesis  
> Aruetii – traitor   
> Kyr’tsad – Death Watch  
> Verde – soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> What happens when January exams are looming and I should be studying? Another WIP of course!


End file.
